*
Asterisk
- Unicode
- U+002A
- Category
- Punctuation
- HTML Entity
- *
- CSS
- \002A
The asterisk (*), from the Greek for "little star", marks a footnote or the small print (*terms apply), corrects a typo in chat (*their), and replaces the letters of a censored word. Linguists put it before a reconstructed or ungrammatical form. In text it sits raised, near the top of the letters; the asterisk operator ∗ (U+2217) is a separate mathematical character centred on the line, and plain-text maths simply uses * for multiplication (3*4).
On US and UK keyboards * is Shift+8, and the numeric keypad has its own * key. On iPhone it is on the #+= page, on Android on the ?123 page. In WhatsApp, a word wrapped in asterisks (*like this*) turns bold.
On US and UK keyboards * is Shift+8, and the numeric keypad has its own * key. On iPhone it is on the #+= page, on Android on the ?123 page. In WhatsApp, a word wrapped in asterisks (*like this*) turns bold.
How to Type
- Windows
- Shift+8 · numpad * · Alt+42
- macOS
- Shift+8
- Linux
- Shift+8 · Ctrl+Shift+U 2a
- HTML
- *
In Programming
* is multiplication in almost every language, and ** is exponentiation in Python and JavaScript. In C and C++ it declares and dereferences pointers (int *p; *p = 5). Python collects and unpacks arguments with *args and **kwargs. Shell globs match any characters with it (*.jpg), regex repeats the previous item zero or more times (a*), SQL SELECT * takes every column, and CSS * selects every element. In Markdown *text* is italic and **text** bold.
Tags
asterisk
star symbol
asterix
footnote symbol
alt 42
shift 8
multiplication
keyboard symbol
ascii