One way to hold this word: a small bottle tipped onto a cut. It is not medicine that goes inside you and fights an illness that has already started — it is the thing you put on the surface first, so that never get a place to grow. Everything else the word does grows out of that picture of a surface wiped so clean that nothing can live on it.
可以想成一瓶倒在傷口上的藥水。它不是進到身體裡去打仗的藥。它是先塗在表面的東西。目的是讓細菌根本住不進來。這個「把表面擦到什麼都活不了」的畫面，就是這個字的底。往外長一點，變成形容一個空間乾淨到空蕩蕩。再往外一點，被擦乾淨的就不是桌面了，而是一段說法——難堪的部分也一起被抹掉。
From the word’s history
Built from anti- (against) plus septic (to do with rotting and infection), so the parts add up to 'against going bad'.
由 anti-（對抗）加上 septic（腐壞、感染）組成，字面可以想成「對抗腐壞」，正好對上「不讓傷口爛掉」這個核心畫面。
Wiktionary entry for 'antiseptic' (etymology_text: 'From anti- + septic.'), supplied in this packet
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。