The Chinese word 表扬 (biǎoyáng), meaning "to praise" or "to commend", is a compound word formed through the combination of two semantically related characters. The first character, 表 (biǎo), originally meaning "exterior" or "to show", conveys the idea of expressing or making something outwardly visible. The second character, 扬 (yáng), means "to raise", "to uplift", or "to spread". When combined, they create a synergistic meaning: to express (表) and uplift (扬) someone's actions or qualities, effectively capturing the act of publicly raising someone up through positive acknowledgment. This formation follows a common pattern in Chinese where two verbs or conceptual characters are joined to create a more specific and nuanced term.