锂

Lithium Li · 3

lǐ

solid metal · period 2, group 1 · s-block

Anatomy

钅 radical 金 jīn
metal → solid metal

+ 里 phonetic
from lithium =

锂 lǐ

Transliteration. The phonetic half approximates the international name. Lithium

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 锂, traditional 鋰.

1870 鋰化學初階 Huàxué Chūjiē, John G. Kerr (嘉約翰) & Hé Liǎorán (何瞭然)
1871 劣非地恩金石識別 Jīnshí Shíbié, D. J. MacGowan (瑪高溫) & Huà Héngfāng (華蘅芳)
1871 鋰化學鑑原 Huàxué Jiànyuán, Xú Shòu (徐壽) & John Fryer (傅蘭雅), Jiangnan Arsenal

Homophones

Same syllable, different tone: 𫟷 lì Livermorium.

Elsewhere

Japanese リチウム Korean 리튬 Vietnamese lithi

Western name from Greek λίθος (lithos), “stone”. Compare all

Unicode

U+9502 in CJK Unified Ideographs