The word 垫子 (diànzi), meaning "cushion" or "mat", is formed through a common Chinese morphological process known as affixation, specifically using a suffix. It consists of the meaningful root 垫 (diàn), which carries the core semantic idea of "to pad", "to cushion", or "to put under something", and the suffix 子 (zi), a highly frequent nominalizer that often converts verbs or other elements into concrete, everyday nouns. The suffix 子 adds no independent meaning but grammaticalizes the root into a standalone, concrete object, resulting in the complete word meaning "a thing used for padding" or "a cushion". This structure exemplifies a typical "root + nominal suffix" pattern in Mandarin for creating common nouns.