The word "知道" is formed through the conceptual combination of two independent characters: "知", which originally depicted an arrow hitting a target under a mouth, conveying the core idea of "to know" or "knowledge", and "道", which represents a "path" or "the way". Their union creates an ideographic compound where "knowing the path" metaphorically extends to mean "to understand", "to be aware of", or "to know" in the sense of comprehending a truth or a fact, blending the idea of acquired knowledge with the guiding principle of a way.