The word 生病 (shēngbìng, "to fall ill") is formed through a logical conceptual combination of its two component characters. The first character, 生, carries a core meaning of "to give birth to", "to produce", or "to generate". The second character, 病, means "illness" or "disease". Thus, the compound visually and notionally depicts the process of an illness being generated, coming into being, or actively arising within the body, effectively capturing the event of becoming sick rather than merely the state of being sick.