Definitions
thin plates of metal
Etymology
About
鍱 is a phono-semantic compound composed of the radical 金 (metal, gold) and the phonetic 葉 (leaf, foliage). It means a thin metal plate, sheet, or foil, drawing a clear analogy between the thinness of a leaf and that of hammered or rolled metal. The radical places the character in the material realm of metals, while the phonetic contributes the key idea of a flat, thin object, thus shaping its meaning. The character commonly describes metal that has been worked into very thin sheets and is found in contexts like metallurgy, hardware manufacturing, and the classification of processed raw materials.
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