The word 红色 (hóngsè), meaning "red", is formed through a straightforward conceptual combination of its two constituent characters. The first character, 红, independently carries the meaning of the color red or the concept of redness itself. The second character, 色, broadly means "color". Therefore, the word is constructed by placing the specific hue, 红, directly before the general category, 色, to create a compound that explicitly denotes "the color red", effectively specifying and defining the particular shade within the broader spectrum of colors.