yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements

“color, tint, hue, shade; form, body; beauty, desire for beauty; Kangxi radical 139”

On its own, an ordinary character; Cantonese sik1. Readings and gloss from the Unicode Unihan database.

Carries Caesium

metal → solid metal
+
=
· Cs 55

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.