The word "蚱蜢" is formed by combining two phono-semantic compound characters: "蚱" consists of the semantic component "虫" (insect) and the phonetic component "乍" (indicating pronunciation "zhà"), while "蜢" similarly uses "虫" for meaning and "孟" for pronunciation ("měng"). Together, they create a disyllabic term for grasshopper, with each character contributing both semantic and phonetic elements.