How to Type Ă / ă (A With a Breve)
ă is a lowercase a with a breve, the little cup-shaped mark that curves upward like a shallow smile. The capital is Ă.
Unlike á or ä, this one has no Windows Alt code and no Mac shortcut, so for most people the fastest route really is to copy it from the box below. If you type it often, adding a Romanian or Vietnamese keyboard is the proper fix, and this guide covers that too.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: grab ă or Ă from the box below. Quickest for a one-off.
- On a phone: switch to a Romanian or Vietnamese keyboard, or long-press a and see if ă is offered.
- In Word: type 0103 and press Alt + X for ă (0102 for Ă).
- On Linux: press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 0103, then Enter.
Copy and paste ă
Highlight the character you need and copy it. The last three columns are there if you’d rather type or code the letter yourself. Note that ă has no named HTML entity, only a numeric one.
| Character | Unicode | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ă | U+0103 | 0103 then Alt + X (Word) | Character Viewer | ă |
| Ă | U+0102 | 0102 then Alt + X (Word) | Character Viewer | Ă |
What the breve on a means
The breve (˘) is the short-vowel mark. The name comes from the Latin brevis, meaning short, and it once flagged a vowel you say quickly.
It’s easy to confuse with its neighbours, so it helps to look closely: the circumflex â is a pointed hat, the macron ā is a flat line for a long vowel, and the breve ă is the little bowl that sits between them.
In everyday use, ă is a full letter rather than a decoration. In Romanian it stands for a schwa, the neutral “uh” sound in casă (“house”). In Vietnamese it’s a short a, as in ăn (“to eat”), and it holds its own place in the alphabet with its own dictionary entry.
| Language | Example | What ă does |
|---|---|---|
| Romanian | casă | the schwa /ə/, a neutral “uh” |
| Vietnamese | ăn | a short “a” (its own letter) |
| Latin (textbooks) | ă | marks a vowel as short |
ă is one of several accented forms of a. If you’re actually after â, à, á, ä, ã, å, or ā, the a with accent guide runs through each, and the full letters-with-accents list has every other character.
The á guide covers the acute version, and the â guide covers the circumflex.
How to type ă on any device
Because ă sits above the basic Latin range, several of the usual accent tricks don’t reach it. Here’s what works on each device, and where the easy shortcuts run out.
Windows
There’s no Alt + 0xxx code for ă. The Alt-code system stops at 255 and the breve sits past it, so Alt + 0259 hands you a different character.
What does work: press Windows + . to open the symbol panel, click the Ω tab, and pick ă from the Latin set. Or open Character Map from the Start menu, find ă, and copy it. In Word, the quickest route is to type 0103 and press Alt + X (use 0102 for Ă).
If you write Romanian or Vietnamese regularly, add that keyboard under Settings, then Time & Language, so ă gets its own key.
Mac
The Mac’s Option-key accents cover acute, grave, circumflex, tilde, and umlaut, but not the breve, so there’s no two-key shortcut for ă.
Open the Character Viewer with Control + Command + Space, search for “breve,” and double-click ă to drop it in. For regular use, add the Romanian or Vietnamese input source under System Settings, then Keyboard.
iPhone and Android
Long-pressing the a key shows the common accented a’s, but the default English keyboard usually leaves ă out.
Two dependable fixes: copy it from the box above, or add a Romanian or Vietnamese keyboard in your settings and switch to it when you need ă. On those layouts the character is a normal keypress or a long-press option.
Microsoft Word
Word reaches ă even when Windows can’t on its own. Type the hex code 0103 and press Alt + X, and the digits turn into ă. Use 0102 for Ă.
If it comes up a lot, save it as an AutoCorrect entry under File, then Options, then Proofing, mapping something you’d never type by accident (like ;ab) to ă.
Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 0103, then press Enter. With a Compose key set up, the sequence is Compose, then U (which stands in for the breve), then a.
Excel and Google Sheets
Alt codes won’t help here, for the same reason they don’t elsewhere in Windows. The reliable route is the UNICHAR formula: =UNICHAR(259) returns ă and =UNICHAR(258) returns Ă. It works the same in Google Sheets.
Outside a formula, paste ă from the copy box or from Insert, then Symbol.
Google Docs
Open Insert, then Special characters, and type “a with breve” in the search box, or draw the breve shape in the sketch pad and pick ă from the matches. On a Mac, the Character Viewer works inside Docs too.
HTML and CSS
ă has no named HTML entity, so use the numeric ones: ă for ă and Ă for Ă. In a CSS content value, the escaped code point is \0103.
Troubleshooting
“Alt + 0259 gives me the wrong character.”
That’s expected. Windows Alt codes only run to 255, and ă is code point 259, past the end of the list. Use Character Map, the Windows + . panel, or Word’s 0103 then Alt + X instead.
“Long-press on my phone doesn’t show ă.”
The default English keyboard only offers the common accents. Add a Romanian or Vietnamese keyboard in your phone’s settings, or copy ă from the box above.
“It pastes as a box or a question mark.”
The other program is using an older, non-Unicode encoding that doesn’t include ă. Save or paste as UTF-8 and the character will hold.
“Is this ă, â, or ā?”
Look at the mark on top. A little cup that opens upward is the breve (ă). A pointed hat is the circumflex (â). A flat line across the top is the macron (ā). They’re three separate letters.
FAQ
What’s the difference between ă and â?
The mark on top. ă has a breve, the small upward cup; â has a circumflex, the pointed hat. In Romanian they’re separate letters with different sounds, so they aren’t interchangeable.
Does ă have a Windows Alt code?
No. Alt codes stop at 255 and ă is 259, so there’s no Alt + 0xxx for it. Use Character Map, Windows + ., or Word’s 0103 then Alt + X.
What sound does ă make?
It depends on the language. In Romanian it’s a schwa, the neutral “uh” in casă. In Vietnamese it’s a short a. In Latin textbooks it simply marks a vowel as short.
What’s the fastest way to type ă just once?
Copy it from the box above. For regular use, add a Romanian or Vietnamese keyboard, or set up the Word Alt + X shortcut.
