汞 (gǒng) is a Chinese character meaning “mercury”. It is written from 工 (work) and 水 (water), one above the other, and takes 7 strokes.
Build the character for “mercury”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
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Structure
工 + 水
Top–bottom structure
Structure from: Unicode U+6C5E 现代字形与笔顺数据（7 画 = 工 3 画 + 水 4 画）；水 为义符，工 gōng 与本字 gǒng 同声母同韵母、仅声调不同，作声符
Memory aid
Work (工) resting on water (水): the one metal that pours and beads like water — quicksilver, mercury.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
7 strokes
In real words
- 汞柱gǒng zhùmercury column汞 = gǒng
- 汞中毒gǒng zhòng dúmercury poisoning汞 = gǒng
Go deeper
All readings
mercury
mercury; quicksilver; the chemical element Hg
一种常温下呈液态的银白色金属，元素符号 Hg，俗称水银。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 汞柱gǒng zhùmercury column汞 = gǒng
- 汞中毒gǒng zhòng dúmercury poisoning汞 = gǒng
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 汞 mean?
汞 (gǒng) means mercury; quicksilver; the chemical element Hg.
How do you pronounce 汞?
It is pronounced gǒng.
What parts is 汞 made of?
工 (work) and 水 (water), one above the other. The recorded source is: Unicode U+6C5E 现代字形与笔顺数据（7 画 = 工 3 画 + 水 4 画）；水 为义符，工 gōng 与本字 gǒng 同声母同韵母、仅声调不同，作声符. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 汞 have?
7. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 汞?
水. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 汞?
Common ones are 汞柱 and 汞中毒. The reading of 汞 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.