The word 湮灭 is formed by combining the characters 湮 and 灭: 湮 includes the water radical (氵) for meaning related to submerging or burying, with 垔 as a phonetic component, while 灭, derived from the simplified form of 滅, depicts fire being extinguished and means to destroy. Together, they semantically reinforce each other to denote complete annihilation or obliteration.