The Chinese word 蜥蜴 (xīyì), meaning "lizard", is a classic example of a disyllabic compound formed through the rebus principle and semantic-phonetic construction. Both characters share the radical 虫 (chóng), which denotes "creature" or "insect", categorizing the animal as a reptile. The components 析 (xī) in 蜥 and 易 (yì) in 蜴 primarily provide phonetic cues to approximate the modern pronunciation /ɕi.i/, while their original meanings (to split/analyze and to change/exchange, respectively) are largely irrelevant, making the compound a coordinated, phonetically-driven binome where the shared radical provides the core semantic meaning of "creeping creature".