How the character is built
The 气 radical marks this as a gas, and that is not a coincidence of this one character — it holds right across the table. Read the radical first and the element's state at room temperature is already settled.
Where you actually meet it
氩弧焊 (yàhúhàn) argon arc welding
The element itself
Argon makes up about one percent of the air, which is startlingly high for a noble gas, and the explanation is radioactive. Roughly one potassium atom in ten thousand is the unstable isotope potassium-40, and a fraction of those decay into argon; over four and a half billion years that argon has leaked out of rocks and accumulated in the atmosphere. It is also the basis of a dating method — seal argon into a crystal, and the amount that has built up tells you how long ago the rock last cooled. Because it is inert and cheap, it is the gas that shields a welding arc.
Where it sits among the 118
First isolated in 1894.
The full entry
For stroke order, example sentences, audio and the complete set of meanings, see the dictionary entry.
氩Argon in the dictionary →Others built the same way
Every one of these carries 气, and every one is a gas.