The word 预期 is formed by combining two meaningful characters: 预, which carries the idea of "in advance" or "beforehand", and 期, which means "a period of time", "to expect", or "to hope for". Their conceptual fusion creates a compound idea where the notion of "beforehand" directly modifies the notion of "expectation", resulting in the integrated meaning of "to anticipate" or "expectation", essentially, an expectation formed or held prior to an event or point in time.