溴

Bromine Br · 35

xiù

liquid · period 4, group 17 · p-block

Anatomy

氵 radical 水 shuǐ
water → liquid

+ 臭 phonetic
from bromine =

溴 xiù

Transliteration. The phonetic half approximates the international name. “stinky”, Gr. brómos (stench)

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 溴, traditional 溴.

1870 溴化學初階 Huàxué Chūjiē, John G. Kerr (嘉約翰) & Hé Liǎorán (何瞭然)
1871 孛羅名金石識別 Jīnshí Shíbié, D. J. MacGowan (瑪高溫) & Huà Héngfāng (華蘅芳)
1871 波羅明 bōluómíng 金石識別 Jīnshí Shíbié, D. J. MacGowan (瑪高溫) & Huà Héngfāng (華蘅芳) míng 明 instead of mín, avoiding the Daoguang Emperor's tabooed name
1871 溴化學鑑原 Huàxué Jiànyuán, Xú Shòu (徐壽) & John Fryer (傅蘭雅), Jiangnan Arsenal
1905 溴 xiù 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press

Homophones

No other element shares this syllable.

Elsewhere

Japanese 臭素 Korean 브로민 Vietnamese brom

Western name from Greek via French βρῶμος (brómos), “dirt" or "stench" (of male goat){{cite book”. Compare all

Unicode

U+6EB4 in CJK Unified Ideographs