The word 厌食症 is formed by combining three characters: 厌, meaning "to detest" or "to dislike"; 食, meaning "food" or "eating"; and 症, meaning "disease" or "disorder". The sequence 厌食 creates a compound meaning "to dislike food", and adding 症 specifies it as a medical condition, resulting in the term for "anorexia" or an eating disorder characterized by aversion to food.