yuánzì Chinese characters of the chemical elements
钽

Tantalum Ta · 73

tǎn

solid metal · period 6, group 5 · d-block

Anatomy

钅 radical 金 jīn
metal → solid metal
+ 旦 phonetic
from tantalum =
钽 tǎn

Transliteration. The phonetic half approximates the international name. Tantalum

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 钽, traditional 鉭.

1850187519001925195019752000antiquitytoday
鉭 tǎn
1905 · 化學新教科書 · Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū (1905) — Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
鐽 dá
1920 · 曾提議 · Proposed, not adopted — Various an early character for tantalum, reused for darmstadtium in 2003
  1. 1905 鉭 tǎn 化學新教科書 Huàxué Xīn Jiàokēshū, Dù Yàquán (杜亞泉), Commercial Press
  2. 1920 鐽 dá 曾提議 Proposed, not adopted, Various an early character for tantalum, reused for darmstadtium in 2003

Homophones

Same syllable, different tone: 碳 tàn Carbon.

Elsewhere

Japanese タンタル Korean 탄탈럼 Vietnamese tantali

Western name from Greek Τάνταλος (Tantalus), “possibly "the bearer" or "the sufferer”. Compare all

Unicode

U+94BD in CJK Unified Ideographs