用户 (yònghù) literally combines 用 (yòng, 'to use') and 户 (hù, 'household' or 'family unit'), originally referring to a household that uses a service. In modern Chinese, it exclusively means 'user' — specifically a person who uses a digital system, app, website, or technical service. It is a formal, neutral term widely used in tech, business, and customer service contexts, and rarely appears in casual speech about people in non-digital settings.

The word functions as a noun and typically appears after classifiers like 一 (yī) or quantifiers like 所有 (suǒyǒu). It often co-occurs with verbs like 注册 (zhùcè, 'to register'), 登录 (dēnglù, 'to log in'), or 删除 (shānchú, 'to delete'). Unlike English 'user', 用户 carries no negative connotation (e.g., not implying addiction or passive consumption) and is never used for animals or non-human entities — it always refers to human individuals interacting intentionally with a system.