夏

Some scholars identify an oracle bone character ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 日 (“sun”) + 頁 (“head; man”) as this character – a man under the scorching sun; summer. However, it only appears as a diviner's name, making the identification uncertain.

In Spring and Autumn period bronze inscriptions, various variants appeared. 止 (“foot”) was often added below the man, and in some forms 日 was removed while 𦥑 (“two hands”) was added. The seal script inherits from the latter form, with 止 replaced by the related 夊.

Warring States period forms also varied. The bamboo and silk script above shows a common form: 日 + 止 + 頁. The "ancient script" (古文) in Shuowen (labelled as large seal script) has deviated significantly, with 止 becoming 足 and the top part possibly a corruption of 頁.

The current form derives from the seal script, with 𦥑 and the legs of 頁 removed. Unrelated to 复.

; “great; Xia Dynasty; China; Chinese”

; “magnificent colours; variegated”

Sagart (2023b) relates it to 暇 (OC *[g]ˤra-s, “leisure”) and Burmese အား (a:, “to be free (not in use; without obligations)”), the latter of which STEDT derives from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-ra (“strength; to win; classifier for people”) but does not compare to 夏. See 暇 for more.