The Chinese word 气象 (qìxiàng) is a compound term formed by combining two meaningful characters: 气 (qì), which originally denotes "air", "vapor", or "vital energy", and 象 (xiàng), meaning "appearance", "phenomenon", or "image". Together, they literally translate to "the appearance of the air" or "atmospheric phenomena", reflecting the concept of weather and climate. Over time, its meaning expanded metaphorically to encompass the overall atmosphere or scene of a situation, but in its core formation, it directly describes observable natural phenomena in the sky and environment, hence its primary modern meanings of "weather" and "meteorology".