The word "好不容易" is formed by taking the basic phrase "不容易" (meaning "not easy") and prefixing it with the intensifier "好" (meaning "very" or "quite"), thereby creating an emphatic construct that heightens the sense of difficulty. This layering of emphasis over negation results in a fixed idiomatic expression where the combined characters collectively convey a meaning of extreme hardship or hard-won achievement, often used to stress the considerable effort required to accomplish something.