The word 校长 is formed through the logical combination of two meaningful characters: 校 (xiào), meaning "school", and 长 (zhǎng), meaning "chief", "head", or "leader". It is constructed by placing the domain or institution (校) first, followed by the designation of the person in charge (长), thus creating a new, compound concept that directly and intuitively signifies "the head of the school". This method of formation reflects a common pattern in Chinese where two independent concepts are merged to define a specific role or object within a clear hierarchical or functional relationship.