0x17E

0x17E is the hex shorthand sometimes used to refer to the Unicode code point U+017E, which corresponds to the Latin small letter z with caron, ž. In Unicode terminology, U+017E is the character that renders as ž in most fonts. Its uppercase form is Ž, located at U+017D. The taxonomic name is Latin small letter z with caron, and it belongs to the Latin Extended-A block.

The character is used across several Central and Southeast European languages that spell with the Latin alphabet. It represents a distinct phoneme in those languages, commonly realized as a voiced postalveolar fricative [ʒ], similar to the English sound in measure. In many orthographies, the letter is essential for proper word formation, morphology, and meaning. Because of its diacritic, ž often appears in native and loan vocabulary such as personal names and national terms, and it is treated as a separate letter in the alphabet for languages that use it.

In digital text, rendering of ɀ, Ž, or ž depends on font support for the caron diacritic. When plain ASCII is required, the sound is frequently transliterated as "zh." Unicode handling ensures correct normalization, case mapping, and sorting in languages that distinguish ž from z. The character is widely supported in modern operating systems, fonts, and input methods, though rendering quality can vary with older or limited-font environments.