The word 手术 (shǒushù, "surgical operation") is formed by directly combining two conceptual building blocks: 手 (shǒu), meaning "hand", and 术 (shù), meaning "art", "method", or "technique". It is a purely meaning-based compound where the first character specifies the primary tool, the hand, and the second character defines the activity as a skilled craft or procedure, together creating the integrated concept of "the technique of the hand", which naturally points to the manual skill of a surgical operation.