The word "陌生人" is formed through a direct conceptual assembly: it begins with "陌", an ancient term for a path between fields, evoking a sense of distance and unfamiliar terrain; this combines with "生", meaning unfamiliar or unacquainted, to create the core idea of "strange" or "unfamiliar" ("陌生"); finally, the character "人", meaning person, is attached, pointing this sense of unfamiliarity at a human subject. Thus, the entire compound visually and notionally paints the picture of "a person from an unfamiliar path", a stranger.