The word 自杀 (zìshā, meaning "suicide") is formed through a direct and logical combination of two conceptual characters: 自 (zì), which pictographically represents a nose and by extension means "self", and 杀 (shā), which depicts a weapon over a mark and means "to kill". The compound is formed not by grammar but by placing these two root ideas side-by-side to create a new, composite concept, literally "self-kill", where the relationship and full meaning are immediately understood from the sum of its parts.