The word 沐浴 is formed through a common Chinese lexical process called synonym compounding, where two semantically similar or related characters are combined to create a single, more comprehensive or abstract term. The character 沐 originally depicted washing one's hair, while 浴 depicted the body immersed in water, meaning to bathe. By pairing these two specific acts of cleansing, the compound word 沐浴 broadens in meaning to encompass the general concept of "to bathe" or "to immerse oneself in", and by extension, can be used metaphorically to mean to be steeped in something (like sunlight or culture).