yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
铅

Lead Pb · 82

qiān

solid metal · period 6, group 14 · p-block

Anatomy

钅 radical 金 jīn
metal → solid metal
+ 㕣 phonetic =
铅 qiān

Ancient name. Known in China long before modern chemistry; the old character was kept. Named in ancient China

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 铅, traditional 鉛.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
鉛 qiān
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.
黑鉛 hēiqiān
1868 · 格物入門 · Géwù Rùmén (1868) — W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College since zinc was 白鉛 “white lead”
  1. antiquity 鉛 qiān 古名 Pre-modern usage, Classical texts (Shuōwén Jiězì, Běncǎo Gāngmù)
  2. 1868 黑鉛 hēiqiān 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College since zinc was 白鉛 “white lead”
  3. 1933 鉛 qiān 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 鉛 Korean 납 Vietnamese chì

Western name from Anglo-Saxon lead. Compare all

Unicode

U+94C5 in CJK Unified Ideographs