Asterisk
Part of Basic ASCII: Alt 33 to 126
On Windows, hold Alt and type 42 on the numeric keypad to insert asterisk.
- Alt code
- Alt+42
- HTML entity
- *
- Unicode
- U+002A
About this symbol
The asterisk takes its name from the Greek asteriskos, little star. Ancient scholars in Alexandria used it in the margins of texts to mark lines, and today it marks footnotes, stands for multiplication in computing and, in a search, means “anything”.
Unicode facts
- Official name
- ASTERISK
- Also called
- Star
- Type
- Punctuation
- Unicode block
- Basic Latin
- Unicode group
- ASCII punctuation and symbols
- Added in
- Unicode 1.1 (1993)
- Unicode notes
- Can have five or six spokes
- Related
- ٭ Arabic Five Pointed Star U+066D◌⃰ Combining Asterisk Above U+20F0꙳ Slavonic Asterisk U+A673
Click the symbol or any value at the top of the page to copy it. See the full Basic ASCII: Alt 33 to 126 chart for related characters.