The Chinese word "奥林匹克" (Àolínpǐkè) is a phonetic loanword, formed through transliteration to approximate the sound of the English word "Olympic." Each character is chosen not for its meaning, but for its pronunciation: "奥" (Ào) captures the "Oly-" sound, "林" (lín) approximates "-ympic" with an 'n' sound common in Chinese phonetics, and "匹克" (pǐkè) directly mimics the "-pic" syllable. This is a standard method in Chinese for adopting foreign proper nouns, creating a recognizable auditory equivalent while using existing characters as phonetic symbols.