白金

Chinese

 
white; empty; blank; bright; clear; plain; pure; gratuitous
 metal; gold; money
simp. and trad.
(白金)		 白 金

Etymology

Wasei kango (和製漢語), orthographically borrowed from Japanese 白 (はっ)金 (きん) (hakkin, “platinum”), which was in turn a semantic readaptation of Chinese 白金 (“silver”).

Pronunciation

Noun

白金

  1. (informal) platinum (metal)
  2. white gold (alloy of gold)
  3. (archaic) silver
  4. (slang) handcuffs

Derived terms

  • 白金卡
  • 白金婚

Japanese

Chemical element
Pt Previous: イリジウム (irijiumu) (Ir)
Next: 金 (きん) (kin) (Au)

Etymology 1

Kanji in this term
白 金
はく > はっ
Grade: 1		 きん
Grade: 1
on’yomi

Originally from Middle Chinese compound 白金 (MC bˠæk̚ kˠiɪm, “white + metal”) in reference to silver. Consider 銀 (shirogane, older shirokane, “silver”, literally “white metal”), where shiro in isolation is spelled 白 and kane in isolation is spelled 金.

Repurposed by Udagawa Yōan in 1834 as a compound of 白 (haku, “white”) +‎ 金 (kin, “gold”), in reference to the metal's description as “white gold” in earlier scientific works, such as Dutch witgoud.

Pronunciation

Noun

白金 (hiragana はっきん, rōmaji hakkin, historical hiragana はくきん)

  1. platinum (metal)
  2. (rare, possibly obsolete) silver, particularly silver powder used as a pigment
Usage notes

This reading hakkin is sometimes used erroneously to refer to white gold, due to one of the literal interpretations of the characters in the kanji spelling. The reading shirokin (see below) appears in some reference works[2] with the meaning white gold, but the borrowed term ホワイトゴールド (howaito gōrudo) is much more common.

Synonyms
Descendants

Etymology 2

Kanji in this term
白 金
しろ
Grade: 1		 きん
Grade: 1
yutōyomi

Compound of 白 (shiro, “white”) +‎ 金 (kin, “gold”). The use of the kun'yomi for the first character and the on'yomi for the second character points to a more recent derivation.

Pronunciation

Noun

白金 (hiragana しろきん, rōmaji shirokin)

  1. (rare, possibly proscribed) white gold
Synonyms
  • ホワイトゴールド (howaito gōrudo) (much more common)
  • 白 (はく)色 (しょく)金 (きん) (hakushokukin)

References

  1. ↑ 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  2. ↑ 2002, Ineko Kondō; Fumi Takano; Mary E Althaus; et. al., Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary, Third Edition, Tokyo: Shōgakukan, →ISBN.
  • 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.