The word "总共" is formed through a logical and reinforcing combination of its two component characters. The first character, "总" (zǒng), carries the core meaning of "to gather", "to sum up", or "general whole", establishing the idea of bringing things into a collective scope. This concept is then directly intensified by the second character, "共" (gòng), which means "together", "jointly", or "in common", explicitly emphasizing shared totality. Thus, the formation progresses from the action of summing or collecting ("总") to a definitive emphasis on the unified, aggregate result ("共"), creating a single term that means "altogether" or "in total".