The word "看似" is formed by combining the character "看" (kàn), meaning "to look" or "to see", with the character "似" (sì), meaning "to resemble" or "like". Together, they create a compound where "看" conveys the act of observation and "似" indicates similarity, resulting in a term that means "to seem" or "to appear as if", directly deriving its meaning from the sequential contribution of each character's literal sense.