The word 经历 is formed through the combination of two characters that each contribute a closely related core meaning of passage or traversal. The first character, 经 (jīng), carries the fundamental sense of "to pass through" or "to undergo", like a thread passing through a loom. The second character, 历 (lì), adds the concrete idea of "to experience over time" or "to traverse", as in moving through a calendar or a journey. When placed together, they create a semantic compound where the meanings reinforce and deepen each other, conceptually picturing the process of moving through and being affected by events over a span of time, thus giving us the modern meaning of "to experience" or "an experience".