The word 种子 (zhǒngzi), meaning "seed", is formed through a conceptual and visual combination of its two component characters. The first character, 种 (zhǒng), carries the core idea of "seed", "kind", or "to plant", representing the very essence or origin from which something grows. This is combined with 子 (zi), a common suffix in Chinese that often nominalizes a concept, adding a sense of a concrete, tangible, or small entity. Together, they create a unified concept where 种 provides the specific meaning of a propagating unit, and 子 finalizes it as the physical object itself, the small, fundamental kernel from which life springs.