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 来 lái, for the 'rhe-' of rhenium.
This character is used for the element and little else — you are unlikely to meet it outside a chemistry classroom.
The element itself
Rhenium was the last stable element to be discovered, in 1925, and it deserved the wait: it is one of the rarest things in the crust and forms essentially no mineral of its own. Every gram of it is condensed out of the flue gases when molybdenite is roasted, which means the supply is hostage to copper mining. It has the second-highest melting point of any element and, added in small amounts to nickel superalloys, lets a turbine blade run hotter without creeping out of shape — which is why most of the world's rhenium ends up spinning inside jet engines.
Where it sits among the 118
First isolated in 1925.
The full entry
For stroke order, example sentences, audio and the complete set of meanings, see the dictionary entry.
铼Rhenium in the dictionary →Others built the same way
Every one of these carries 钅, and every one is a metal.