The word 魔术 (móshù, meaning "magic" as in performance magic) is formed through the direct conceptual combination of its two component characters: 魔 (mó), which conveys a sense of "demon", "evil spirit", or "supernatural force", and 术 (shù), which means "art", "technique", or "method". The compound thus synthetically creates the meaning of an "art of the supernatural", a skilled craft that produces mysterious, seemingly impossible illusions, much like the power of a spirit or demon, but harnessed as a human performance.