The Chinese word 饶恕 (ráoshù), meaning "to forgive" or "to pardon", is a compound word formed by combining two semantically similar characters: 饶 (ráo), which originally carries the sense of "to spare" or "to have mercy", and 恕 (shù), which means "to forgive" or "to excuse", itself a conceptual character combining "heart/mind" (心) and "like" (如) to express the idea of "treating others with one's own heart". Together, these two morphemes reinforce and intensify the concept of granting forgiveness, with 饶 emphasizing the act of leniency or forbearance and 恕 contributing the core ethical notion of empathetic forgiveness, creating a term with a more profound and formal nuance than either character alone.