noun #10,526

Meanings

  1. 1 tin (the metal)
  2. 2 pewter

Examples

HSK 5
Yúnnán shì Zhōngguó zuì dà de chǎn xī dìqū.
Yunnan is China's largest tin-producing region.
HSK 6
Xī shì yī zhǒng chángjiàn de jīnshǔ.
Tin is a common metal.
HSK 6
Zhège guànzi shì xī zuò de.
This can is made of tin.

Tips

memory
has the metal radical on the left. The right side (yì, easy) hints at the sound. Tin is a soft, easy-to-work metal.

Components

radical
jīn
metal; gold (radical form)
Metal radical on the left, the indexing component and a contracted form of . It marks as a specific metal in the periodic-table sense, alongside iron, copper, lead, silver, steel. Almost every metal element name uses this radical, making the family easy to scan.
phonetic
easy; to change
Right side yì supplies the sound with a regular shift yì → xī (an old palatalisation). The same phonetic appears in bestow, lizard, kick - sharing the xi/ti/ci initial group. Pure phonetic role, no semantic carryover from "easy".

In Pop Culture

Wú xī
Wuxi
Major city in Jiangsu province, literally 'no tin' - named because its tin mines were exhausted

Stroke Order