How to Write 銾 (hòng) — Meaning “Amalgam”

Imagine a shiny golden crown (金) being dipped into a pool of shiny liquid mercury (汞), and the two metals merge into a single strange new substance — that is an amalgam. The character looks like the mercury is 'holding' the metal, so you can think 'metal + mercury = 銾'. This visual story makes the rare character easier to recall.

The left radical 金 must be written narrow and tall, with the last stroke (a dot) placed neatly above the horizontal dash. The right part 汞 has a shorter top (工) and a water-like bottom (水), so the whole character remains balanced — neither side should be too wide. A common mistake is making the right side too large, which makes the character look unbalanced.

銾 (hòng) means 'amalgam' and is very rare in modern Chinese, only used in chemistry. 鉄 (tiě) is the simplified form of 铁, meaning 'iron', and is a common word. 鉴 (jiàn) means 'mirror' or 'to examine' and has a different structure (the upper part is like two claws over a dish). Visually, 銾 and 鉴 both have 金 on the left, but 銾 has 汞 on the right while 鉴 has 监.

銾 is almost exclusively used in scientific or chemical contexts to refer to 'amalgam' — a mixture of mercury with another metal, such as in 銾汞 (hòng gǒng, amalgam). It is not a common character in everyday life and does not appear in HSK vocabulary. Because mercury is toxic, you will mostly find this character in old chemistry texts or specialized articles about dental fillings or gold extraction.

Common words containing 銾 include: 銾汞 (hòng gǒng) — Amalgam; 銾化 (hòng huà) — Amalgamation; 銾金 (hòng jīn) — Gold amalgam.