The Chinese word 披萨 (pīsà) is formed through phonetic transliteration, where the characters are selected to mimic the sounds of the English word "pizza". The character 披 (pī) approximates the "pi" sound, while 萨 (sà) approximates the "zza" sound; the meanings of these characters, such as 披 meaning to drape or spread and 萨 often used in transliterations for "sa" sounds, are unrelated to the food itself, serving solely to represent the pronunciation.