The Chinese word 毒贩 is formed by directly combining the character 毒, which means "poison" or specifically "drug" in this context, with the character 贩, which means "to deal in" or "trader". This fusion creates a compound where the first element identifies the illicit substance involved, and the second element defines the commercial activity or role, resulting in a term that intuitively signifies a person who trades in drugs, effectively meaning "drug dealer".