白金

白金

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

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.

• On’yomi: Kan’on
  • (Tokyo) はっきん [hàkkíń] (Heiban – [0])[1]
  • IPA^(key): [ha̠k̚ʲkʲĩɴ]

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

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.

• (platinum): プラチナ (purachina)
• (silver): 銀 (ぎん) (gin), 銀 (しろがね) (shirogane)
• (silver powder): 銀 (ぎん)粉 (ぷん) (ginpun)

• → Chinese: 白金
• → Korean: 백금 (baekgeum)
• → Vietnamese: bạch kim

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.

• Yutōyomi
  • IPA^(key): [ɕiɾo̞kʲĩɴ]

白金 (hiragana しろきん, rōmaji shirokin)

1. (rare, possibly proscribed) white gold

• ホワイトゴールド (howaito gōrudo) (much more common)
• 白 (はく)色 (しょく)金 (きん) (hakushokukin)

• 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan

白金 • (baekgeum) (hangeul 백금)

1. Hanja form^? of 백금 (“platinum”).

白金

1. Hán tự form of bạch kim (“platinum”).