The word 硬盘 (yìngpán) is formed by directly combining two meaningful characters: 硬 (yìng), meaning "hard" or "rigid", and 盘 (pán), meaning "disk" or "tray". It is a literal, conceptual compound created to name a technological object by describing its key physical characteristic, it is a rigid, non-flexible disk for data storage, in contrast to the earlier "软盘" (ruǎnpán, floppy disk) which was flexible. The formation is purely descriptive, building the term from the basic attributes of the object itself.