asterisk

Word family

• asterisked
  adjectiveC2
• asteroid
  nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words point to small symbols that send a reader to extra information, but they differ in form, register, and how often you meet them. 'Asterisk' names the * symbol specifically and is the standard word in editing, schoolwork, and computing. 'Star' is the everyday spoken word for the same shape — people say 'press the star key' on a phone, but 'asterisk' is preferred in writing. 'Dagger' refers to the † symbol, used as a second-level footnote mark after an asterisk has already been used on the same page. 'Footnote marker' is a general term covering any symbol — *, †, or a number — that signals a note. So: pick 'asterisk' when you mean *, 'star' when speaking casually, 'dagger' for the second note on the page, and 'footnote marker' when the symbol could be any of these.

Common collocations

Etymology

The word came into English in the late 1300s from Late Latin 'asteriscus', which was borrowed from Greek 'asteriskos', meaning 'little star'. The Greek word is built from 'aster', meaning star, plus a small ending that adds the sense of 'tiny'. So the original picture is a tiny star — the same idea you see in the printed symbol today. The verb use, meaning 'to mark with this symbol', appeared in English much later, around the 1600s.