yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
汞

Mercury Hg · 80

gǒng

liquid · period 6, group 12 · d-block

Anatomy

氵 radical 水 shuǐ
water → liquid
+ 工 phonetic =
汞 gǒng

Ancient name. Known in China long before modern chemistry; the old character was kept. Known since ancient times; etymology debated, possibly from 工 (functional)

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 汞, traditional 汞.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
水銀 shuǐyín
antiquity · 古名 · Pre-modern usage — Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù) “water silver”; the Shíyào Ěryǎ (806) lists twenty-one alchemical aliases
汞 gǒng
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.
銾 hóng
1905 · 化學新教科書 · Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū (1905) — Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
  1. antiquity 水銀 shuǐyín 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù) “water silver”; the Shíyào Ěryǎ (806) lists twenty-one alchemical aliases
  2. antiquity 汞 gǒng 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù)
  3. 1905 銾 hóng 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
  4. 1933 汞 gǒng 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 水銀 Korean 수은 Vietnamese thủy ngân

Western name from Latin Mercurius, “Mercury", Roman god”. Compare all

Unicode

U+6C5E in CJK Unified Ideographs