The word "菠萝" (bōluó) for "pineapple" is a phonetic loanword formed through transliteration, likely entering Chinese via maritime trade routes through southern dialects like Cantonese or Min, where it approximated the sound of a foreign term such as the Malay "nanas" or, more probably, a word like "波罗" used in South Asian contexts. The characters were chosen primarily for their sound ("菠" bō and "萝" luó), but the addition of the grass radical (艹) on both characters semantically categorizes it as a plant, creating a phono-semantic compound that signals both its pronunciation and botanical nature, distinguishing it from the alternative native term "凤梨".