瓷
cí · HSK 7
porcelain
🏺 Sounds like SEE — you see the shine on fine porcelain
Cí echoes English see. Porcelain is prized for its translucent glaze — the kind of surface you notice by how light plays across it. China invented it, and the word china itself means porcelain.
瓷 — 次 cì (phonetic) + 瓦 wǎ 'tile/earthenware' (semantic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 瓦 'tile, baked clay' gives the meaning (a fired ceramic ware), while 次 supplies the sound 'cì'. The character originally referred to fine fired pottery, and later came to mean porcelain specifically — the prized white ware that gave China its English name.