The Chinese word 防火墙 (fánghuǒqiáng) for "firewall" is a semantically transparent compound formed by combining the characters 防 (fáng), meaning "to defend" or "to prevent", and 火墙 (huǒqiáng), meaning "fire wall". It directly translates the English metaphorical concept of a protective barrier against digital threats by literally meaning a "wall that defends against fire", where "fire" metaphorically represents network attacks or unauthorized access. This formation exemplifies a common Chinese strategy of creating new technical terms through meaningful, analogical compounding based on the function of the imported concept.