Platinum Pt · 78
solid metal · period 6, group 10 · d-block
Anatomy
Meaning-based. The second half also names a property of the element. “white”, as in “white gold”
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 铂, traditional 鉑.
- 1868 白金 báijīn 格物入門 Géwù Rùmén, W. A. P. Martin (丁韙良), Tongwen College “white gold”
- 1871 鉑 bó 化學鑑原 Huàxué Jiànyuán, Xú Shòu (徐壽) & John Fryer (傅蘭雅), Jiangnan Arsenal an old character for gold leaf, repurposed so compounds could be written with one character
- 1905 鉑 bó 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
Homophones
Same syllable, different tone: 𬭛 bō Bohrium.
Elsewhere
Japanese 白金 Korean 백금 Vietnamese platin
Western name from Spanish via Neo-Latin platina (del Pinto), “little silver" (of the Pinto River){{cite book”. Compare all
Unicode
U+94C2 in CJK Unified Ideographs