The word 脚踏实地 is formed from the characters 脚 (foot), 踏 (tread), 实 (solid), and 地 (ground), arranged sequentially to convey the literal meaning "feet tread on solid ground". Its structure combines 脚踏, a verb-object phrase meaning "to tread with feet", and 实地, a modifier-noun phrase meaning "solid ground", resulting in a fixed descriptive phrase.