The word 胡话 (húhuà), meaning "nonsense" or "ravings", is formed through a logical semantic combination of its two characters: 胡 (hú), which historically referred to northern nomadic tribes and, by extension, came to mean "reckless", "outlandish", or "without reason", and 话 (huà), meaning "speech" or "words". Thus, the compound literally translates to "reckless speech" or "unreasonable words", where the first character modifies the nature of the second, creating a term that describes irrational or unintelligible talk.