Tangut character 173E8

It means “corpse,” not the event of death.

A scholarly reconstruction, an estimate of the old sound, writes its historical reading as rġhu̱r¹; the raised ¹ marks tone.

Tangut writing was created under Western Xia's first emperor about 1036 for official and cultural use. It also appears in Buddhist and private texts; after the Mongol conquest in the 13th century, use continued into the Yuan and Ming periods before the script fell out of use by the end of the Ming dynasty.

Is 𗏨 a Chinese character?

No. It belongs to the Tangut script.

Tangut is a separate writing system, though its characters use some structural ideas also seen in Chinese writing. That design connection does not make 𗏨 a Chinese character or a reason to substitute a Han character.

Researchers use dictionaries such as the 12th-century Wénhǎi (“Sea of Writing”) and Tóngyīn (“Homophones”), along with manuscript comparisons, to reconstruct Tangut readings.

What does it mean when someone sends 𗏨?

By itself, it is a Tangut word or script sample.

Tangut learners or researchers may recognize its gloss, while other recipients may see an unfamiliar script. A sender may be sharing a historical text or checking font support, so ask for the surrounding line before reading it as a message.