Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex Letter
â is the Latin small letter a with a circumflex accent, used in many Western European languages.
U+00E2
â is a Unicode character used to write an accented “a”. You can copy it directly, or insert it using its Unicode code point U+00E2 in code and HTML.
Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex Letter Meaning
â (Unicode U+00E2) is the Latin small letter “a” with a circumflex (ˆ) placed above it. It commonly appears in languages that use diacritics, especially in French (and in other Western European contexts) to represent specific pronunciation or meanings. In plain text, â is often encountered when accented text is present but encoding or decoding is incorrect (for example, mojibake where UTF-8 was interpreted as a different charset). Because it is a real Unicode character, it is also useful in typography, web content, and documentation that must preserve proper diacritics.
Common uses
- •Writing French and other languages that require the circumflex over “a”
- •Correcting encoding issues (mojibake) where “a” with circumflex should be shown
- •Formulating titles, names, and citations that include accented characters
- •Using in web pages and UI text where exact Unicode characters matter
- •Preparing searchable text in documentation, subtitles, and transcripts
Examples
â (Latin small letter a with circumflex)
- âcafé
- âpâtes
- âhôtel
- âlâche
- âélève
Variations
Technical codes
| Unicode | U+00E2 | |
| HTML Entity | â | |
| HTML Code | â | |
| CSS | \00E2 |
FAQ
What does the Latin Small Letter A With Circumflex letter mean?
â (Unicode U+00E2) is the Latin small letter “a” with a circumflex (ˆ) placed above it. It commonly appears in languages that use diacritics, especially in French (and in other Western European contexts) to represent specific pronunciation or meanings. In plain text, â is often encountered when accented text is present but encoding or decoding is incorrect (for example, mojibake where UTF-8 was interpreted as a different charset). Because it is a real Unicode character, it is also useful in typography, web content, and documentation that must preserve proper diacritics.
What Unicode character is â?
â is LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX, Unicode code point U+00E2.
How do I type â on the web?
You can paste the character directly, or use HTML entity â or Unicode escapes like \\u{00E2} (JavaScript).
Why do I sometimes see â in place of an accented character?
It can be a sign of encoding problems (mojibake), such as interpreting UTF-8 bytes with the wrong character set.
Is â a separate character from “a”?
Yes. â is a distinct Unicode character from plain “a” because it includes a circumflex diacritic.