The Chinese word 伪君子 (wěijūnzǐ), meaning "hypocrite" or "a false gentleman", is a compound term formed through semantic combination. It breaks down into three meaningful components: 伪 (wěi), meaning "false", "fake", or "pretended"; 君 (jūn), meaning "gentleman", "noble person", or "superior man", a classical Confucian ideal; and 子 (zǐ), a nominal suffix used in classical Chinese to denote a master or a person of a certain type. Thus, the term literally and metaphorically constructs the concept of "a false gentleman", someone who outwardly displays the refined morals and virtues of a junzi but whose inner character and actions are deceitful and insincere. This formation follows a common Chinese word-formation pattern where a descriptive modifier (伪) is placed before a core noun (君子) to specify a particular, often ironic or pejorative, category of person.