The word 斗牛 is formed by directly combining two characters: 斗 (dòu), meaning "to fight" or "to battle", and 牛 (niú), meaning "bull" or "cattle". This creates a vivid conceptual compound that visually and notionally represents the core activity of "bullfighting". It can refer specifically to the Spanish spectacle of a matador battling a bull, or more broadly to the traditional Chinese festive performance of "bull fighting", where two bulls are set to fight each other. The formation is purely ideographic, painting a simple, immediate picture of the action (fighting) and the central participant (the bull) to name the entire event or practice.