The Chinese word for Africa, 非洲 (Fēizhōu), is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing and semantic association. The character 非 (Fēi) was chosen primarily for its sound, approximating the first syllable of "Africa", while the character 洲 (zhōu) means "continent", providing a clear semantic category. Thus, the word combines a sound-based clue with a meaning-based clue, creating a compound that literally signals "the continent Fei", which was established as the direct equivalent for Africa.