The Chinese word **邂逅 (xièhòu)**, meaning "to meet by chance" or "a serendipitous encounter," is a classical **disyllabic compound** formed through the combination of two semantically similar characters. Both 邂 and 逅 are archaic, rarely used independently, and originally carried the core meaning of "meeting without prior arrangement." Their pairing is a classic example of **synonym compounding**, where two near-identical morphemes are combined to create a single, reinforced concept—in this case, emphasizing the accidental, unexpected, and often fateful nature of an encounter. This formation, solidified in classical literary Chinese, gives the term its poetic and slightly formal nuance compared to more common words for "meet."