The character 尾巴 (wěiba), meaning "tail", is formed through a straightforward semantic combination. The first character, 尾, is itself a pictographic ideogram that historically depicted a person (尸) with a feather or hair ornament (毛), later generalized to mean "tail" or "end". The second character, 巴, originally depicted a snake and carries connotations of something long, clinging, or attached. When combined, 尾 provides the core meaning of "tail", while 巴 acts as a phonetic and reinforcing component, emphasizing the idea of a long, trailing appendage attached to a body, resulting in a clear and vivid compound word for "tail".