磷
Phosphorus P · 15
solid non-metal · period 3, group 15 · p-block
Anatomy
Ancient name. Known in China long before modern chemistry; the old character was kept. “glowing”, Gr. phôsphóros (light bearing); known since ancient times
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 磷, traditional 磷.
- antiquity 燐 lín 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù) “ghost fire”, with the fire radical, in the Shuōwén Jiězì
- 1868 光藥 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College
- 1870 燐 化學初階 Huàxué Chūjiē, John G. Kerr (嘉約翰) & Hé Liǎorán (何瞭然)
- 1871 燐 金石識別 Jīnshí Shíbié, D. J. MacGowan (瑪高溫) & Huà Héngfāng (華蘅芳)
- 1871 燐 化學鑑原 Huàxué Jiànyuán, Xú Shòu (徐壽) & John Fryer (傅蘭雅), Jiangnan Arsenal
- 1901 硄 guāng 化學名目與命名法 Chemical Terms and Nomenclature, Educational Association of China (益智書會)
- 1905 燐 lín 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
- 1933 磷 lín 化學命名原則 Principles of Chemical Nomenclature, Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translation fire radical replaced by stone for a solid non-metal
Homophones
No other element shares this syllable.
Elsewhere
Japanese リン Korean 인 Vietnamese phosphor
Western name from Greek via Latin φῶς + φόρος (phos + phoros), “light-bearer”. Compare all
Unicode
U+78F7 in CJK Unified Ideographs