The Chinese word "杯葛" is formed as a phonetic transliteration of the English surname "Boycott", derived from Charles Boycott, whose treatment led to the term for organized ostracism. The characters "杯" (bēi) and "葛" (gé) are chosen solely for their approximate sounds to "boy" and "cott", respectively, creating a loanword where the characters' original meanings are not relevant to the concept.