The word 公爵 (gōngjué), meaning "duke", is formed by combining two meaningful characters: 公 (gōng), which conveys notions of "public", "official", and by extension "noble" or "of the highest order", and 爵 (jué), which originally depicted a ritual wine vessel and came to specifically mean "nobility rank" or "peerage". The concept fuses the idea of supreme public authority (公) with the specific institution of aristocratic title (爵), creating a term for the highest rank of hereditary nobility below a prince, embodying both the social stature and the formal grant of the title.