The Chinese word "的士" is formed through phonetic transliteration, where the characters are selected solely for their sound to approximate the English word "taxi". The character "的" (de) corresponds to the "ti" sound, and "士" (shì) corresponds to the "xi" sound, creating a combined pronunciation that mimics "taxi" in Mandarin. The meanings of the individual characters are irrelevant in this context, as the word is a direct loanword based on sound.