The Chinese word 生效 (shēngxiào), meaning "to take effect" or "to become effective", is a compound formed by combining two meaningful characters: 生 (shēng), which carries the core idea of "to give birth to", "to produce", or "to come into being", and 效 (xiào), which means "effect", "efficacy", or "result". Together, they create a verb-object (动宾) construction where 生 acts as the verb ("to produce") and 效 serves as its object ("the effect"), thus literally conveying the concept of "to produce an effect" or "to come into effect", precisely describing the moment a rule, contract, or law becomes operative and valid.