The word 参军 (cānjūn) is a standard Chinese verb-object compound word, formed by combining the verb 参 (cān), meaning "to join" or "to participate", with the noun 军 (jūn), meaning "military" or "army". Literally, it means "to join the army", where the first character denotes the action and the second character is the direct object of that action. This formation follows a highly common grammatical structure in Chinese for creating verbs that describe an action upon a specific object, resulting in the specific meaning "to enlist in the military".