The Chinese word 银河 (Yínhé), meaning "Milky Way", is a metaphorical compound formed by combining the character 银 (yín), meaning "silver", with 河 (hé), meaning "river". This construction poetically describes the appearance of the Milky Way in the night sky as a luminous, silvery band stretching across the heavens like a celestial river. It is a classic example of how Chinese vocabulary often creates vivid, imagery-based terms by combining meaningful characters to represent a concept that is both descriptive and culturally evocative.