Dictionary

Xia en · PROPN

Pronunciation

• shyä
• (US) audio
• /ʃɑ/ (US)

Etymology

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 夏 (Xià).

Meanings

1. (historical) An ancient dynasty in China.
   • But records of the first dynasty, that of the Xia, contain stories of a Great Flood with a Noah-like savior, the Emperor Yu, who gained the mandate of heaven after dredging canals to dispel the floodwaters and make the land safe. Historians have long wondered whether this flood account was a creation-style myth, the folk memory of a real event, or some mixture of the two. Some have dismissed the story of Emperor Yu as a fiction intended to justify centralized rule and, in the absence of any evidence of a massive flood at the time, many have regarded the stories of the Xia dynasty as more myth than history. 2016 August 4, Nicholas Wade, “Scientific Evidence of Flood May Give Credence to Legend of China’s First Dynasty”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2016, Science:
   • Shortly after the era of the flood, sites associated with a culture called Erlitou began to emerge. To archaeologists, they signal the start of China's Bronze Age: The communities are 10 times as big as the ones that existed previously, and their technology is much more sophisticated. So far, no evidence has been found to definitively link the Erlitou to the mythical Xia. But if the Xia dynasty really did exist, it's thought that the Erlitou sites would have been the lands they ruled. 2016 August 4, Sarah Kaplan, “Legends say China began in a great flood. Scientists just found evidence that the flood was real.”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2016, Science:
2. A surname.
3. A county of Yuncheng, Shanxi, China.

Forms

Deriveds

Xia-Gibbs syndrome

Translations (3)

cmn 夏 (dynasty; surname; county) · ja 夏 (dynasty; surname; county) · mnc ᡥᡳᠶᠠ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ (dynasty; surname; county)