One hypothesis to the origin of the asterisk is that it stems from the 5000-year-old Sumerian character dingir, □, though this hypothesis seems to only be based on visual appearance. However, an asterisk was not always used. In the Middle Ages, the asterisk was used to emphasize a particular part of text, often linking those parts of the text to a marginal comment. The asterisk evolved in shape over time, but its meaning as a symbol used to correct defects remained. Origen is known to have also used the asteriskos to mark missing Hebrew lines from his Hexapla. There is also a two-thousand-year-old character used by Aristarchus of Samothrace called the asteriskos, ※, which he used when proofreading Homeric poetry to mark lines that were duplicated. The asterisk was already in use as a symbol in ice age cave paintings. Early asterisks seen in the margin of Greek papyrus. History The asteriskos used in an early Greek papyrus. In computer science, the asterisk is commonly used as a wildcard character, or to denote pointers, repetition, or multiplication. ![]() It is also often used to censor offensive words. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. An asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in print and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten, though more complex forms exist. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.Ĭomputer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as star (as, for example, in the A* search algorithm or C*-algebra). ![]() The asterisk ( / ˈ æ s t ər ɪ s k/ *), from Late Latin asteriscus, from Ancient Greek ἀστερίσκος, asteriskos, "little star", is a typographical symbol. Look up * or asterisk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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