The word 残忍 (cánrěn, meaning "cruel" or "brutal") is formed through a conceptual combination where the first character, 残 (cán), meaning "cruel", "injure", or "mutilate", establishes the core act of violence or damage. The second character, 忍 (rěn), meaning "to endure" or "to bear", is then juxtaposed not as its own action, but to critically describe the nature of the first: it implies a cold, hardened capacity to inflict or witness such brutality without remorse. Thus, the compound evokes the specific idea of a deliberate, pitiless cruelty, the act (残) performed with a heart able to tolerate or even ignore suffering (忍).