The Chinese word 美洲 (Měizhōu), meaning "the Americas" or specifically "the American continents", is formed through a combination of semantic and phonetic adaptation. The first character 美 (měi) is a shorthand phonetic loan from "亞美利加" (Yàměilìjiā), the Chinese transliteration of "America", while the second character 洲 (zhōu) means "continent", providing the semantic category. Thus, the compound literally translates as "the American continent(s)", originating as an abbreviation of the full historical name 亞美利加洲.