The word **惊醒** is formed through a common Chinese morphological process of compounding, where two independent characters, each with their own meaning, are combined to create a new, specific meaning. The first character, **惊** (*jīng*), means "to startle" or "to be alarmed," and the second, **醒** (*xǐng*), means "to wake up." When combined in this verb-verb structure, the term semantically conveys the cause and effect: to be **startled awake**, or to wake up suddenly due to an alarm, noise, or realization, thus capturing both the external stimulus and the resulting state of consciousness in a single, efficient compound word.