What 𝒂 means
It is a math-style a; the formula gives it a specific role.
The glyph combines Latin lowercase a with bold italic mathematical styling; it is not a standalone mark with one fixed value. Unicode’s math alphabets extended an earlier, smaller set of letterlike symbols so plain-text formulas could preserve style distinctions between variables.
AAS Journals’ instructions use bold italic for vectors, as of 2026. Other works may assign this style a different role, so use the surrounding definitions to read 𝒂.
Use it in mathematical notation when the style carries meaning; use text formatting for ordinary words.
In ordinary prose, this character can complicate searching, restyling, and accessibility; use a regular a with formatting.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1Related characters
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Questions people ask
2Why does 𝒂 turn into a plain a?
It can: compatibility normalization, including NFKC or NFKD, maps 𝒂 to plain a, stripping the bold italic distinction. That can help loose text matching but alter math notation.
Why does 𝒂 show up as a box?
A missing font glyph is the likely cause. In Word, Microsoft’s support page, as of 2026, advises choosing a font that includes the character if it fails to display.
More like this
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Collections with 𝒂
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How to type or find 𝒂
- Search it as
- fancy a · bold italic a · math bold italic a · math font a · italic unicode a · unicode letter a
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𝒂\1D4821D482 without U+ and press Alt+X; Microsoft’s support page documents this shortcut as of 2026.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.