The word 闲云野鹤 is formed by juxtaposing two adjective-noun phrases: 闲云, where 闲 (idle) modifies 云 (cloud) to mean "idle clouds", and 野鹤, where 野 (wild) modifies 鹤 (crane) to mean "wild crane". This direct combination without grammatical connectives creates a compound metaphor through parallel structure.