The word 无助 is formed by the direct conceptual fusion of its two component characters: 无 (wú), meaning "without" or "lack of", and 助 (zhù), meaning "help" or "aid". These are not combined through grammar but through a straightforward ideographic merging, where the meaning of the first character negates or describes the state of the second. The result is a single, unified concept, "helplessness", that emerges from the immediate mental picture of being devoid of assistance, as if the two ideas are locked together to form a single, evocative state of being.