The compound word 微妙 is formed through the combination of two semantic characters, 微 (wēi), meaning "subtle", "tiny", or "minute", and 妙 (miào), meaning "wonderful", "exquisite", or "mysterious". Their fusion creates a synergistic meaning that describes something exceedingly delicate, refined, and complex, a state, feeling, or difference that is subtle to the point of being indescribable, wonderfully intricate, or abstruse. This formation follows the common Chinese lexical pattern where two related adjectives are joined to express a single, more nuanced, and often abstract quality that encompasses both original senses, resulting in a term like "subtle and profound".