Xia variant character

It is a variant of 夏, read xià in Mandarin. Treat 夓 as 夏 written in an older form. Depending on context, it can mean summer or refer to the Xia dynasty; the surrounding words tell you which.

The older history belongs to the 夏 character family. Oracle-bone inscriptions—records carved on animal bones and turtle shells—use an early form of 夏 as a personal name. Later bronze inscriptions show changed forms and use 夏 for Huaxia, a name for people of China's Central Plains. Later writing uses 夏 for summer and the Xia dynasty, as well as in specialized terms for music, water, places, and the calendar.

An early Chinese character dictionary, 《說文》, records 𠍺 as an old form of 夏. Another old character dictionary, 篇海類編, lists 夓 as a variant of 夏.

Use 夏 in ordinary modern writing.

Use 夓 when reproducing an older text, discussing character forms, or deliberately choosing an archaic style. For ordinary modern Chinese, 夏 is the expected form. Japanese character references also list 夓 as an old form of 夏; modern Japanese writing uses 夏.

Why does 夓 show as a box?

A font may not contain this uncommon glyph. 夓 is a text character drawn by the installed font. If that font lacks the glyph, your device may show a box or fallback design; the missing glyph does not change which character the text contains. A font that includes it can display the character.