The word 悲惨 is formed by combining two characters, each carrying a profound sense of sorrow, to create a single, intensified concept of profound misery. The first character, 悲 (bēi), represents deep sadness or grief, like mourning. The second, 惨 (cǎn), conveys misery, cruelty, or a wretched, devastating condition. They are fused not merely by addition, but by a kind of semantic resonance; the deep inner sorrow of 悲 merges with the harsh, outward devastation of 惨 to evoke a complete and overwhelming state of tragic suffering, where one's internal grief is perfectly mirrored by the cruel circumstances of external reality.