The Chinese word 摩尔 (mó ěr) is a phonetic loanword formed through transliteration, specifically borrowing the sound of the English scientific term "mole" (the unit for amount of substance in chemistry). The characters were chosen primarily for their phonetic approximation, "摩" (mó) captures the "mo" sound and "尔" (ěr) approximates the "le" sound, while their original meanings (摩: to rub, to touch; 尔: you, that) are largely irrelevant to the scientific concept, making this a classic example of using existing Chinese syllables to represent a foreign term.