The metal radical 金

Read jīn, 8 strokes. Written 钅 as a component in modern simplified characters. It indexes 45 distinct HSK characters.

45HSK characters

8Strokes

#167Radical number

钅Written form

Quick answer

What does the metal radical (金) mean, and which characters use it?

Metal (金, jīn) is Kangxi radical 167, and it usually marks a character whose meaning is connected to metal. 45 distinct HSK characters are filed under it, the most common being 金, 钱, 错. When you meet a new character carrying 钅, expect its sense to touch metal and let the other component hint at the sound.

How this radical works inside a character

Most characters built on 金 follow the meaning-plus-sound pattern: 金 sits on one side to signal the metal sense, and a second component supplies the approximate pronunciation. So you are rarely memorizing a whole new shape, you are recognizing metal plus a part you may already read. The list below is in corpus-frequency order, so the characters you will actually meet first are at the top: learn them in this order and the rest of the metal-radical family gets easier as you go.

All 45 metal characters 45 characters

#	Char	Pīnyīn	Strokes	HSK 3.0	HSK 2.0
1	金	jīn	8	3	4
2	钱	qián	10	1	1
3	错	cuò	13	1	2
4	销	xiāo	12	4	5
5	铁	tiě	10	2	3
6	针	zhēn	7	4	4
7	锁	suǒ	12	5	5
8	镇	zhèn	15	6	6
9	钟	zhōng	9	2	1
10	银	yín	11	2	3
11	铃	líng	10	5	5
12	鉴	jiàn	13	6	6
13	钉	dīng	7	7-9	6
14	镜	jìng	16	4	3
15	钢	gāng	9	5	5
16	锅	guō	12	5	5
17	键	jiàn	13	5	4
18	钻	zuān	10	6	6
19	锋	fēng	12	6	6
20	铜	tóng	11	6	5
21	铺	pù	12	6	6
22	钓	diào	8	7-9	5
23	钩	gōu	9	7-9	6
24	铅	qiān	10	6	3
25	铭	míng	11	7-9	6
26	铲	chǎn	11	7-9	·
27	锈	xiù	12	7-9	6
28	锐	ruì	12	7-9	5
29	锤	chuí	13	7-9	6
30	锦	jǐn	13	7-9	6
31	镶	xiāng	22	7-9	6
32	锻	duàn	14	4	3
33	钙	gài	9	7-9	·
34	钞	chāo	9	7-9	6
35	钥	yào	9	7-9	4
36	钦	qīn	9	7-9	6
37	钧	jūn	9	7-9	·
38	钳	qián	10	7-9	·
39	铝	lǚ	11	7-9	·
40	铸	zhù	12	7-9	6
41	链	liàn	12	7-9	5
42	锡	xī	13	7-9	·
43	锯	jù	13	7-9	·
44	镑	bàng	15	7-9	·
45	锲	qiè	14	·	6

tone 1 tone 2 tone 3 tone 4 neutral Order = corpus frequency, most common first · · = not in that scheme

Strokes and radical assignment come from the Unicode Han Database (Unicode 17.0.0, field kRSUnicode); the HSK levels and the frequency order are computed from the shipped HSK word lists. A small number of characters have a contested radical across dictionaries; the primary Unicode analysis is used throughout. Last verified 2026-07-24. See the full radical explorer or the characters-per-level reference.

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Drill the metal-radical characters on a schedule

This list is free to browse and self-test here, always. If you would rather practice recognizing these characters on your phone with spaced repetition, we recommend Wordbrush, our one disclosed pick. Never a gate on this page.

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