The Chinese word **烟火 (yānhuǒ)** is a compound formed by combining two meaningful characters: **烟 (yān)**, meaning "smoke," and **火 (huǒ)**, meaning "fire." Together, they create a conceptual blend that originally referred literally to the **smoke and fire** of a hearth or beacon, essential for cooking and survival, thus extending metaphorically to signify "cooked food" or "human livelihood" (as in 人间烟火, "the smoke and fire of the human world," implying everyday life). Over time, its most common modern usage evolved to denote **fireworks** (like 放烟火, "set off fireworks"), where the visual spectacle directly combines the "fire" and the resulting "smoke," perfectly encapsulating the word's etymological roots in a single vivid phenomenon.