The word "遇难" (yùnàn) is a compound formed by combining the verb "遇" (yù), meaning "to encounter" or "to meet with", and the noun "难" (nàn), meaning "disaster", "calamity", or "misfortune". Literally, the combination translates to "encounter a disaster", but as a fixed lexical unit, it has acquired the specific, euphemistic meaning of "to die in an accident or tragedy" or "to be killed", often used in formal or news reporting contexts to refer to victims of incidents like plane crashes, natural disasters, or violent attacks. Its formation follows a common Chinese morphological pattern where a verb and its object merge to create a new term with a specialized, often metaphorical, meaning.