yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements

liú

“(same as 旒; corrupted form of 荒) a cup with pendants, a pennant, wild, barren, uncultivated”

On its own, an ordinary character; Cantonese lau4. Readings and gloss from the Unicode Unihan database.

Carries Sulphur

stone → solid non-metal
+
liú
=
liú · S 16

Not a plain transliteration: the component was chosen for its meaning, or the name is older than the system.

The element keeps the component’s reading exactly.