The Chinese word "歇斯底里" is formed through phonetic transliteration from the English word "hysteria", where each character approximates a syllable of the source word: "歇" (xiē) for "hy-", "斯" (sī) for "-s-", "底" (dǐ) for "-te-", and "里" (lǐ) for "-ria", resulting in a term that mimics the original sound in Chinese pronunciation.