The Chinese word 大炮 (dàpào, meaning "cannon" or "artillery") is a compound noun formed through semantic combination. The first character 大 (dà) means "big" or "large", functioning as a descriptive modifier. The second character 炮 (pào) originally referred to catapults or projectile-throwing engines in ancient times and evolved to mean "gun" or "cannon". Therefore, the term literally and conceptually combines "large" + "cannon/artillery" to specify a major piece of heavy, long-range firearm artillery, distinguishing it from smaller firearms. This follows the common Chinese word-formation pattern where an adjective modifies a noun to create a new, more specific term.