The Chinese word 病态 is a compound formed through morphological derivation, where two independent characters, each with their own meaning, are combined to create a new semantic unit. The first character, 病 (bìng), means "illness" or "disease", and the second, 态 (tài), means "state" or "condition". When combined, they construct a metaphorical or extended meaning: the literal "state of being ill" is abstracted to describe any unhealthy, abnormal, or pathological condition, whether psychological (e.g., a morbid mentality), social, or systemic, thereby moving from a concrete medical concept to a broader descriptive term.