The Chinese word 哮喘 (xiàochuǎn), meaning "asthma", is a disyllabic compound formed through semantic combination, where both characters contribute related meanings to create a precise medical term. The first character, 哮 (xiào), primarily denotes a roaring or whistling sound, specifically referring to the wheezing noise characteristic of labored breathing. The second character, 喘 (chuǎn), means to pant, gasp, or suffer from shortness of breath. When combined, 哮喘 thus encapsulates the two key symptomatic features of the condition: the audible wheeze (哮) and the difficulty of breath or panting (喘), resulting in a semantically transparent and diagnostically descriptive term.