The Chinese word for "eggplant", 茄子 (qiézi), is formed through a common morphological process in Mandarin where a core meaning-bearing character, 茄 (qié), which historically denotes the eggplant plant itself, is combined with the suffix 子 (zi). The suffix 子 here is grammatical rather than lexical; it has lost its original meaning of "child" and functions primarily as a nominalizer, often forming concrete, everyday nouns. This structure (X + 子) creates a disyllabic word that is phonologically balanced and typical of modern Chinese, with 子 adding no independent meaning but solidifying the term as a standard noun for the vegetable.