The Chinese word 衰竭 (shuāijié) is a compound term formed through the combination of two semantically related characters: 衰 (shuāi), which means "to decline", "to weaken", or "to wane", and 竭 (jié), which means "to exhaust", "to use up", or "to drain". Together, they create a synergistic meaning that describes a process of progressive weakening leading to complete exhaustion or failure, most commonly used in medical contexts (e.g., heart failure, 心力衰竭) to denote the failure of an organ or system due to the depletion of its functional capacity.