The word 纽约 (Niǔyuē) for "New York" is formed through a process of phonetic and semantic adaptation, where two existing Chinese characters are selected primarily for how closely their combined pronunciation approximates the sound of the English name "New York". The character 纽 (niǔ) captures the "New" sound, while 约 (yuē) approximates the "York" sound. Critically, these are not arbitrary sounds; each character carries its own intrinsic meaning (like "button" and "agreement/treaty"), but in this compound, those original meanings are largely set aside to collectively create a new, fixed phonetic representation of the foreign place name, resulting in a coined term that is uniquely Chinese in script yet recognizable in pronunciation.