The word 苍蝇 (cāngying, meaning "fly" as in the insect) is formed by combining two characters: 苍 (cāng), which conveys a color meaning like "dark", "gray", or "greenish-blue", and 蝇 (yíng), which means "fly". It is a conceptual compound where the first character describes a typical visual attribute, the dull, dark, or metallic bluish-green hue of a common housefly or blowfly, and attaches it to the general category of insect named by the second character, thus specifying this particular kind of fly by its characteristic appearance.