The Chinese word "牛肉" is formed through the direct combination of two pictographic characters: "牛", which depicts a cow with horns and represents the animal itself, and "肉", which resembles a slice of meat and signifies flesh or meat. When placed together, these characters create a compound meaning where "牛" modifies "肉" to specify the type of meat, resulting in the term for "beef" or literally "cow meat". This formation follows a common semantic pattern in Chinese where a noun indicating an animal is paired with "肉" to denote the meat derived from that animal, relying on visual and conceptual association rather than grammatical rules.