The Chinese word 支配 is a compound formed by combining two independent, meaningful characters: 支, which originally pictographically represents a branch and carries connotations of support, control, or disbursement; and 配, which depicts wine in a vessel and conveys meanings of matching, distributing, or arranging. When combined, their individual semantic fields of control/ allocation (支) and arrangement/ distribution (配) synergize to create the modern abstract verb meaning "to dominate", "to control", or "to allocate", where one element directs and the other systematizes the arrangement of resources, time, or even people.