The Chinese word for walnut, "胡桃" (hú táo), is a compound noun formed through semantic combination. The first character, "胡" (hú), historically acts as a prefix meaning "from the northern and western nomadic peoples" or "foreign," indicating the nut's ancient introduction to China via the Silk Road from Central Asia. The second character, "桃" (táo), literally means "peach," but in this context, it is used metaphorically to denote a tree or fruit bearing a large, stony pit or hard shell, drawing a visual and structural analogy between a peach stone and a walnut shell. Thus, the term literally translates to "foreign peach," succinctly encoding both the origin and the perceived botanical characteristics of the fruit.