The Chinese word 熄灭 (xīmiè), meaning "to extinguish" or "to go out (of a fire/light)", is a complementary compound formed by two semantically similar characters. The first character, 熄, itself means to put out a fire, composed of the fire radical (火) and the phonetic component 息 (breath, rest), suggesting the concept of a fire dying down. The second character, 灭 (滅), means to destroy, wipe out, or extinguish. When combined, 熄 and 灭 reinforce and complement each other's meaning, creating a single, more emphatic verb that vividly describes the complete process of a flame or light being snuffed out.