How the character is built
The 钅 radical marks this as a metal, 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. It is 金 (jīn) squeezed into the space beside another component — radicals change shape by position, which is why 金 is hard to spot until you know to look for 钅.
A variant reading luò is recorded but gè is standard in both the mainland and Taiwan.
Where you actually meet it
镀铬 (dùgè) to chrome-plate; chrome plating
The element itself
Chromium is what makes stainless steel stainless: a few percent in the alloy forms an invisible oxide skin that seals the surface and heals itself when scratched. Its only ore of consequence is chromite, and the largest concentrations lie in layered igneous intrusions — bodies of magma that cooled slowly enough to settle into distinct mineral layers, leaving chromite seams that can be followed underground for a hundred kilometres and more, as in the Bushveld of southern Africa. A different, high-grade style of deposit occurs in old ocean-floor rock, of which the Kazakh ores are the classic example.
Where it sits among the 118
First isolated in 1798.
The full entry
For stroke order, example sentences, audio and the complete set of meanings, see the dictionary entry.
铬Chromium in the dictionary →Others built the same way
Every one of these carries 钅, and every one is a metal.