The Chinese word 违规 (wéiguī) is formed through the combination of two meaningful characters: 违 (wéi), which means "to disobey" or "to violate", and 规 (guī), which means "rules" or "regulations". It is a standard verb-object compound word where the first character denotes an action and the second character is the object of that action; thus, the term literally and semantically means "to violate rules" or "to break regulations", and it functions as a verb or can be used attributively (as in 违规行为, "rule-breaking behavior").