The word 最近 is formed by combining two characters: 最, meaning "most" or "extremely", and 近, meaning "near" or "close". Together, they create a conceptual unit where the superlative degree of 最 is applied to the notion of proximity in 近, shifting the meaning from a purely spatial "closest" to a temporal sense of "most recent", thereby forming the idea of "lately" or "recently". This is a standard morphological process in Chinese where modifying characters combine to express a new, related, but often more abstract concept.