About
The character 铱 (yī) is a modern phono-semantic compound created for scientific nomenclature. It combines the metal radical 钅 (derived from 金) to indicate its classification as a metallic element, with the phonetic component 衣 (yī) to approximate the pronunciation of "iridium". This simplified form of the traditional 銥 was specifically devised by chemists to name this hard, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group. Its use is confined to chemistry and metallurgy to denote iridium and its compounds.