The Chinese word **加薪 (jiāxīn)**, meaning "to give a raise" or "a salary increase," is a straightforward compound formed by combining two meaningful characters: **加 (jiā)**, which means "to add" or "to increase," and **薪 (xīn)**, which originally meant "firewood" but through historical usage (as firewood was a fundamental resource for livelihood) evolved to signify "salary" or "wages." Therefore, the term is formed through a logical semantic combination where "加" provides the action of augmenting and "薪" provides the object being augmented, directly translating to "increase-salary."