The word 无罪 is formed through a direct conceptual combination of its two constituent characters: 无 (wú), meaning "not have" or "without", and 罪 (zuì), meaning "crime" or "guilt". It is constructed by simply placing the negator before the noun, creating a compound whose meaning, "innocence" or "not guilty", is derived transparently from the sequential relationship of "the absence of crime/guilt". This method of formation is a fundamental, pattern-like process in Chinese for creating new words by logically combining core concepts.