The word "清泉" is formed by combining the character "清", which is a phono-semantic compound composed of the water radical "氵" indicating its relation to liquid and the component "青" providing phonetic approximation, meaning "clear", with the character "泉", an ideographic representation derived from a pictograph of water flowing from a source, meaning "spring". Together, they form a compound where the first character descriptively modifies the second to specify a "clear spring".