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asterisk
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The asterisk (), , is a typographical symbol that is a stylised image of a star. An asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in print and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten, though more complex forms exist. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. It is also often used to censor words considered offensive. It is often vocalized as star, especially by computer scientists and mathematicians (as, for example, in the A* search algorithm or C*-algebra).
The asterisk (*) is a star-shaped symbol used in writing and printing, typically appearing with five to eight points depending on whether it's typed or handwritten. It serves practical purposes like marking footnotes, censoring offensive language, and in mathematics and computer science where it's often spoken aloud as "star."
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Symbol.name
- Asterisk
- Symbol.see also
- ()
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Noto Emoji v2.034 002a.svg
Show 5 more facts
- Unicode code point
- 002A
- Commons category
- Asterisks
- Unicode character
- *
- HTML entity
- *
- Unicode character name
- ASTERISK
via Wikidata · CC0
~31 min read
Article
37 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- History
- Usage
- Censorship
- Competitive sports and games
- Baseball
- Cricket
- Computing
- Adding machines and printing calculators
- Programming languages
- Comments in programming languages
- History of information technology
- Economics
- Education
- Fluid mechanics
- Human genetics
- Linguistics
- Historical linguistics
- Ungrammaticality
- Ambiguity
- Optimality theory
- Phonetic transcription
- Mathematics
- Mathematical typography
- Music
- Religious texts
- Star of Life
- Statistical results
- Telephony <span class="anchor" id="Star key"></span>
- Typography
- Unique uses in other languages
- [[German language|German]]
- Encodings
- In Unicode
- See also
- Notes
- References
The asterisk (), , is a typographical symbol that is a stylised image of a star. An asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in print and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten, though more complex forms exist. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. It is also often used to censor words considered offensive. It is often vocalized as star, especially by computer scientists and mathematicians (as, for example, in the A* search algorithm or C*-algebra).
==Etymology==