jīn
metal
Phonosemantic compound. 王 and 吕 represent the meaning and 今 represents the sound. 王 depicts a metal axe and 吕 depicts two metal plates.
Components
Evolution

Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Meaning component in 41 characters (23 verified)
錶 錢 钱 錯 劉 鐵 銷 鐘 錄 鎮 針 鏡 鍵 鎖 釘 钉 鑰 鍛 鉛 鉞 鉦 𨭗 𬭇 鉴 鑒 銜 鑿 釜 鑫 銮 鑾 鋈 鍪 鏖 錾 鎏 鏊 銎 鎣 蓥 鐾
Deleted component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*k(r)[ə]m | kim | jīn | metal, bronze |
Statistics
HSK level 3
Appears in 70.5270% of movies
365th most common character in movies
260th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Unicode | U+91D1 |
Shuowen | “金,五色金也。黄為之長,久薶不生衣,百鍊不輕,从革不違。西方之行,生於土,从土,左右注象金在土中形,今聲。,古文金。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.925
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