The word 木乃伊 is formed through phonetic transliteration of the foreign term for "mummy", with each character representing a syllable to approximate the sound: 木 (mù) for "mu", 乃 (nǎi) for "nai", and 伊 (yī) for "yi". The individual meanings of the characters are disregarded, as the combination serves solely to replicate the auditory form of the source word.