The character 鼻子 for "nose" is formed through a historical and conceptual layering within the single character 鼻. It is a compound ideograph where the top component 自 originally depicted a nose in ancient oracle bone script, meaning "self" or "nose". Over time, to distinguish its meaning, the phonetic and semantic component 畀 (bì) was added beneath it, creating the modern 鼻. Thus, the character visually combines the ancient pictogram for a nose with a reinforcing element, resulting in a standalone ideograph that specifically denotes the physical nose, to which the suffix 子 is then added to form the common noun.