The Chinese word 蒸汽 (zhēngqì), meaning "steam", is a compound formed by combining two semantically related characters: 蒸 (zhēng), which means "to steam" or "to evaporate", referring to the process of vaporizing a liquid through heat, and 汽 (qì), which means "vapor" or "gas". Together, they create a precise term where the first character describes the action or process, and the second specifies the resulting substance, thus directly and logically denoting the gaseous phase of water produced by boiling.