The word "拿破仑" is formed through a process of phonetic transcription, where three Chinese characters are chosen primarily for how closely their combined pronunciation approximates the sound of the foreign name "Napoleon". The characters 拿 (ná), 破 (pò), and 仑 (lún) are strung together not for their individual meanings, which are "to take", "to break", and "order" respectively, but because their spoken sequence "Nápòlún" closely mimics the original name's syllables. This method of creating words is a standard way to import foreign proper nouns into Chinese, focusing on auditory resemblance over semantic meaning.