The word 狡猾 (jiǎohuá, meaning "cunning" or "sly") is formed by combining two characters that each independently convey a sense of deceptive, animal-like cleverness. The first character, 狡, uses the "dog" radical (犭) alongside a component (交) that suggests entanglement or crossing, together evoking the idea of a crafty, twisting deceit. The second, 猾, also uses the "dog" radical combined with 骨 (bone), historically conveying a sense of being slippery, hard to pin down, or internally knotty. When paired, they create a powerful, reinforced concept of treacherous slickness and guile, where the whole meaning is greater than the sum of its vividly illustrative parts.