yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
银

Silver Ag · 47

yín

solid metal · period 5, group 11 · d-block

Anatomy

钅 radical 金 jīn
metal → solid metal
+ 艮 phonetic =
银 yín

Ancient name. Known in China long before modern chemistry; the old character was kept. Named in ancient China

History of the character

Every form found in the sources, from the first missionary chemistry books of the 1850s to the current standards. Hover a dot for the source. Simplified 银, traditional 銀.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
白金 báijīn
antiquity · 古名 · Pre-modern usage — Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù) “white metal” in the Shuōwén Jiězì
銀 yín
antiquity · 古名 · Pre-modern usage — Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù)1933 · 化學命名原則 · Principles of Chemical Nomenclature (1933) — Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translation Inferred: known by 1933, when the Principles fixed one character per element, and no later change is recorded.
白銀 báiyín
1868 · 格物入門 · Géwù Rùmén (1868) — W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College to keep it apart from 水銀 mercury
  1. antiquity 白金 báijīn 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù) “white metal” in the Shuōwén Jiězì
  2. antiquity 銀 yín 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù)
  3. 1868 白銀 báiyín 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College to keep it apart from 水銀 mercury
  4. 1933 銀 yín 化學命名原則 Principles of Chemical Nomenclature, Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translationinferred Inferred: known by 1933, when the Principles fixed one character per element, and no later change is recorded.

Homophones

Same syllable, different tone: 铟 yīn Indium.

Elsewhere

Japanese 銀 Korean 은 Vietnamese bạc

Western name from Akkadian via Old English and Middle English (siolfor/seolfor), “to refine", "smelt”. Compare all

Unicode

U+94F6 in CJK Unified Ideographs