The word 群体 is a compound formed by combining two meaningful characters: 群 (qún), which means "group", "crowd", or "flock", and 体 (tǐ), which means "body", "entity", or "form". Together, they create a new, abstract noun where 群 modifies 体 to specify the type of "body" being referred to, essentially meaning a "group entity" or a "collective body". This structure follows a common Chinese word-formation pattern where two related semantic elements are joined to express a more complex concept, in this case describing an integrated social or biological collective, such as a community, population, or swarm.