yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
镭

Radium Ra · 88

léi

solid metal · period 7, group 2 · s-block

Anatomy

钅 radical 金 jīn
metal → solid metal
+ 雷 phonetic
from radium
=
镭 léi

Transliteration. The phonetic half approximates the international name. Radium

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 镭, traditional 鐳.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
鈤 rì
1920 · 曾提議 · Proposed, not adopted — Various clashed with the same character used for germanium
鐳 léi
1933 · 化學命名原則 · Principles of Chemical Nomenclature (1933) — Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translation
  1. 1920 鈤 rì 曾提議 Proposed, not adopted, Various clashed with the same character used for germanium
  2. 1933 鐳 léi 化學命名原則 Principles of Chemical Nomenclature, Zhèng Zhènwén (鄭貞文), National Institute for Compilation and Translation

Homophones

No other element shares this syllable.

Elsewhere

Japanese ラジウム Korean 라듐 Vietnamese radi

Western name from Latin via French radius, “ray”. Compare all

Unicode

U+956D in CJK Unified Ideographs