dinkus

thumb|alt=Asterisms in use|Three asterisks as a dinkus in the James Huneker novel Painted Veils. This dinkus accentuates the end of a particularly racy chapter, priming the reader for the change in tone.

In typography, a dinkus is a typographic device or convention that typically consists of three spaced asterisks or bullet symbols in a horizontal row, e.g.  ∗∗∗  or  ••• . The device has a variety of uses, and it usually denotes an intentional omission or a logical "break" of varying degree in a written work. This latter use is similar to a subsection, and it indicates that the subsequent text should be re-contextualized. Such a dinkus typically appears centrally aligned on a line of its own with vertical spacing before and after the device. The dinkus has been in use in various forms since . Historically, the dinkus was often represented as an asterism, , though this has fallen out of favor and is now nearly obsolete.