How to Write 醌 (kūn) — Meaning “quinone”

Imagine the left side 酉 as a bottle of wine, and the right side 昆 as a group of people (昆 means 'multitude' or 'elder brother'). Picture a scientist pouring a special chemical called quinone from the wine bottle to a crowd of people. This visual links the meaning 'quinone' to the components of 醌.

Write the left radical 酉 first with 7 strokes: a horizontal stroke, then a short horizontal, then a vertical, then a left-falling stroke, and finally three horizontal strokes (the last two can be connected by a vertical hook). For the right part 昆, start with the top '日' (4 strokes) then the bottom '比' (4 strokes) — note that the left side of '比' is written as two horizontal strokes and a small vertical, while the right side is a short horizontal and a long horizontal with a vertical hook. A common mistake is making the left 酉 too narrow or forgetting the short horizontal inside the wine jar.

醌 (kūn, quinone) is a chemical term, while 酩 (mǐng) appears only in the word 酩酊 (mǐngdǐng, 'very drunk') and 酪 (lào) means 'junket' or 'cheese' (a dairy product). Visually, 醌 uses 昆 on the right, whereas 酩 has 名 (míng, 'name') and 酪 has 各 (gè, 'each') — all share the 酉 radical but differ in their right-side components and meanings.

醌 is a specialized chemistry term for 'quinone', a class of organic compounds used in dyes, batteries, and biochemistry (like Coenzyme Q10). It appears in scientific texts, pharmaceutical names (e.g., 泛醌 for ubiquinone), and rarely in everyday conversation. There are no cultural idioms or common phrases with 醌; it remains a technical word for advanced study.

Common words containing 醌 include: 苯醌 (běn kūn) — Benzoquinone; 醌类 (kūn lèi) — quinones; 泛醌 (fàn kūn) — Ubiquinone (Coenzyme Q10)..