The word **世道** is a compound formed by combining two distinct characters: **世 (shì)**, meaning "world," "society," or "generation," and **道 (dào)**, meaning "way," "path," or "principle." Together, they create an abstract, metaphorical concept where **世** provides the domain (human society or the times) and **道** provides the operative principle or condition of that domain. Thus, **世道** does not simply mean "world's path" literally, but rather signifies the **state of society, the moral order of the times, or the general way of the world**, encapsulating ideas about social trends, public morality, and the overall condition of human affairs. This formation follows a common pattern in Chinese where two semantically related characters are joined to express a nuanced, often idiomatic, philosophical or social concept.