yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
金

Gold Au · 79

jīn

solid metal · period 6, group 11 · d-block

Anatomy

金 is the radical itself: jīn, “metal”. All other metal characters are built on it.

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 金, traditional 金.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
金 jīn
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.
黃金 huángjīn
1868 · 格物入門 · Géwù Rùmén (1868) — W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College “yellow gold”, since platinum was 白金
  1. antiquity 金 jīn 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù)
  2. 1868 黃金 huángjīn 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College “yellow gold”, since platinum was 白金
  3. 1933 金 jīn 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

No other element shares this syllable.

Elsewhere

Japanese 金 Korean 금 Vietnamese vàng

Western name from Old English via Middle English gold. Compare all

Unicode

U+91D1 in CJK Unified Ideographs