The word 恶毒 is formed by combining two characters, each carrying a deeply negative and intense meaning, to create a single concept of profound malice. The first character, 恶 (è), represents "evil" or "wickedness" in a broad, moral sense. It is fused with the second character, 毒 (dú), which means "poison", "toxin", or "venom", conveying a sense of something that is corrosive, harmful, and actively destructive. Together, they do not simply add their meanings but rather fuse them to evoke a specific quality of evil: one that is not just passively bad but is actively harmful, insidious, and cruelly damaging, much like a poison that spreads and corrupts.