The word 松鼠 (sōngshǔ, meaning "squirrel") is formed through a straightforward descriptive combination of two characters: 松 (sōng), which means "pine tree", and 鼠 (shǔ), which means "rodent" or "mouse". It literally paints a picture of a "pine-tree rodent", directly identifying the small animal commonly associated with climbing and living in pine and other trees. This is a classic example of how Chinese creates compound words by combining meaningful pictographic or ideographic components to visually and logically define a concept.