The Chinese word 悲观 (bēiguān), meaning "pessimistic", is a compound word formed by combining two meaningful characters (morphemes): 悲 (bēi), which means "sorrow" or "grief", and 观 (guān), which means "view", "outlook", or "perspective". Together, they create a metaphorical meaning that translates literally to "sorrowful view" or "grievous outlook", effectively conceptualizing pessimism as the act of seeing or anticipating the future through a lens of sadness and negative expectation. This formation follows a common Chinese linguistic pattern where an adjective or noun (悲) modifies an abstract noun (观) to produce a new, fused philosophical or psychological term.