氮
Nitrogen N · 7
gas · period 2, group 15 · p-block
Anatomy
Meaning-based. The second half also names a property of the element. Refers to 淡 “diluting”, the element that dilutes air
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 氮, traditional 氮.
- 1849 淡氣 dànqì 天文略論 Tiānwén Lüèlùn, Benjamin Hobson (合信) “diluting gas”: it dilutes the air
- 1868 硝氣 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College
- 1870 淡氣 化學初階 Huàxué Chūjiē, John G. Kerr (嘉約翰) & Hé Liǎorán (何瞭然)
- 1871 淡氣 化學鑑原 Huàxué Jiànyuán, Xú Shòu (徐壽) & John Fryer (傅蘭雅), Jiangnan Arsenal
- 1871 硝氣 金石識別 Jīnshí Shíbié, D. J. MacGowan (瑪高溫) & Huà Héngfāng (華蘅芳)
- 1873 硝氣 xiāoqì 化學指南 Huàxué Zhǐnán, Anatole Billequin (畢利幹) & Lián Zǐzhèn (聯子振) “nitre gas”
- 1905 育 yù 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press the Educational Association wrote 气 over 育
- 1933 氮 dàn 化學命名原則 Principles of Chemical Nomenclature, Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translation 气 + 炎 from 淡
Homophones
No other element shares this syllable.
Elsewhere
Japanese 窒素 Korean 질소 Vietnamese nitơ
Western name from Greek via Latin and French νίτρον (Latin: nitrum) -γενής (-genes), “native-soda begetter”. Compare all
Unicode
U+6C2E in CJK Unified Ideographs