The Chinese word "蛆虫" is formed by combining the character "蛆", meaning maggot, which itself is a semantic-phonetic character composed of the insect radical "虫" for meaning and "且" for approximate sound, with the character "虫", meaning insect. This combination creates a compound where "蛆" specifies the type of insect and "虫" reinforces the general category, resulting in a term that literally refers to a maggot or worm.