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.
Phonetic 我, read é here rather than its usual wǒ.
This character is used for the element and little else — you are unlikely to meet it outside a chemistry classroom.
The element itself
Osmium is the densest element there is: a litre of it weighs about twenty-two and a half kilograms, so a fist-sized piece is comically difficult to lift casually. It is also the source of one of chemistry's more memorable smells — its volatile oxide has a sharp, penetrating odour that gave the element its name, from the Greek for smell, and it is toxic enough that the metal is handled with care. It occurs as natural alloy grains with iridium in platinum deposits and river placers, and is stubbornly hard to work.
Where it sits among the 118
First isolated in 1803.
The full entry
For stroke order, example sentences, audio and the complete set of meanings, see the dictionary entry.
锇Osmium in the dictionary →Others built the same way
Every one of these carries 钅, and every one is a metal.