Tangut Ideograph 185F1

Its dictionary gloss is “brush” or “scrape.” Li Fanwen’s Tangut–Chinese dictionary uses the Chinese character 刷 for this sense; 刷 translates the entry, but it is not another Tangut form of 𘗱.

Tangut was the language of the medieval Western Xia kingdom in northern China, and this script was used to write it. Its ruler Li Yuanhao ordered the Tangut script in 1036 as part of state-building; scholars think a Tangut edition of the Buddhist canon, the collection of Buddhist scriptures, was a likely aim. Chinese writing influenced Tangut’s visual forms and the way its characters were constructed, but the script did not derive from Chinese. Surviving books include Buddhist and Confucian works, military treatises, encyclopedias, and literature.