The word 强迫症 is constructed from the characters 强迫, meaning "to compel" or "compulsion", and 症, meaning "disorder" or "syndrome". The character 强 conveys strength or force, 迫 conveys pressure or urgency, and together they form the concept of coercion; adding 症 denotes a medical condition, resulting in a term that specifically refers to obsessive-compulsive disorder.