The Chinese word "菲尼克斯" is formed through phonetic transliteration of the English word "Phoenix", where each character is chosen solely for its sound to approximate the original pronunciation: "菲" (fēi) for "phe", "尼" (ní) for "ni", "克" (kè) for "x", and "斯" (sī) for "s", creating a combined term used for foreign proper nouns.