The term 宵禁 is a compound word formed by combining two meaningful characters: 宵 (xiāo), which means "night" or "evening", and 禁 (jìn), which means "to prohibit" or "a ban". Together, they create the meaning "nighttime prohibition", directly and logically describing a curfew, an official order that restricts people from being outdoors during specified nighttime hours. This formation follows the common Chinese morphological pattern where two semantic components combine to produce a new, transparent meaning, in this case, a prohibition specific to the night. (e.g., 当局实施了宵禁。 - The authorities imposed a curfew.)