The Chinese word 软禁 (ruǎnjìn), meaning "house arrest" or "to place under house arrest," is a compound word formed through semantic combination. The first character, 软 (ruǎn), literally means "soft" or "flexible," while the second, 禁 (jìn), means "to prohibit," "to imprison," or "to confine." Together, they create a metaphorical term where 软 modifies the nature of the 禁; it is not a "hard" confinement in a prison cell with bars, but a "softer," more indirect restriction of a person's freedom, typically by confining them to their home or a specific residence under surveillance, thus depriving them of liberty without using a traditional prison.