*
Asterisk
The first mark in the traditional footnote sequence * † ‡ §, and computing's universal wildcard: *.txt matches every text file. Also marks emphasis in Markdown, multiplication in code, and corrected words in chat. Most fonts raise it toward the cap height — for a vertically centered star, use the asterisk operator ∗ instead.
Biography
Library of AlexandriaFrom the Greek asteriskos — little star. Aristarchus of Samothrace used it in the third-to-second century BC at the Library of Alexandria to flag duplicated lines in manuscripts of Homer, which makes it one of the oldest editorial marks still on duty. It has never stopped working: footnotes, corrections, redactions, wildcards.
Copy it anywhere
- Symbol
* - Unicode
U+002A - HTML entity
* - CSS content
\002A - JavaScript
\u002A - URL encoded
* - Windows Alt code
Alt+42