铅
qiān · HSK 7
lead
✏️ metal radical 钅 marks a metal; 铅笔 (lead + pen) = pencil
The 钅 radical flags this as a metal. Lead was once used for writing cores, so 铅笔 literally reads lead-pen and means pencil, even though modern pencils use graphite.
铅 — metal radical 钅 + 㕣 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the metal radical 钅 (金) signals a metal, while 㕣 supplies the sound, originally close to 'yan' but shifted to qiān. The character has long denoted lead, the soft heavy metal, and by extension things like pencil 'lead' (铅笔) in modern usage.