asterisk
Pluralasterisks
Verbasterisks, asterisking, asterisked
Pluralasterisks
Formsasterisks, asterisking, asterisked
- 1The star-shaped symbol *, used in printing and writing for various purposes, such as directing readers to a footnote or marking where letters or words have been left out.
Like a tiny flag planted in a sentence to send your eye somewhere else.
An asterisk follows the athlete's name, sending readers to a footnote about the disputed record.
The Hôtels marked with one asterisc are Restaurants also. Those marked with two asteriscs have Table d'Hôte.
1869, “Notices Useful to the Foreigner”, in One Week at Venice: Illustrated Guide for Visiting Every Thing Worthy of ConsiderationSimilarstar
Note
Its older work was often discretion. Letitia Elizabeth Landon's speaker in Ethel Churchill (1837) sees no use for names "unless it be to put in asterisks", meaning the starred-out name of someone better left unidentified. Nineteenth-century writers also spelled it asterisc. M. J. B. Silvestre (1849) describes asteriscs as a textual sign marking Hebrew words the Seventy left out of their Greek version.
- 2To mark or replace text with an asterisk symbol; to star.
The style guide tells writers to asterisk any term defined elsewhere in the glossary.
Reviewers asterisked the records that contained errors before sending them back.
Note
The verb is regular (asterisked, asterisking) and takes a direct object: you asterisk an item, a name or a line. Rebecca Campbell's Slave to Love (2003) shows its everyday use, as a traveler goes through a guidebook "underlining the must-dos and asterisking the should-dos". There it marks things worth a second look. Star does the same job in a shorter word.
- 3A qualification or blemish that detracts from an otherwise outstanding achievement, marking it as less than wholly legitimate.
Like a footnote of doubt stapled to a trophy.
Commentators argued the suspension left an asterisk beside an otherwise flawless season.
To purists, the steroid era hangs an asterisk over every home-run record from those years.
Similarblemish, stain, blot, taint, caveat
Note
American sports talk turns the footnote mark into a verdict: an achievement with an asterisk still counts, but it comes with a caveat attached. Unlike a printed mark, it can be measured in degrees. A team can arrive "with a little bit of an asterisk" after unconvincing wins. It is understood elsewhere, but its natural home is the sports page.
- 4Something regarded as of little importance or merely marginal; a footnote to larger events.
Like a name in fine print that no one reads.
Historians treat the brief rebellion as little more than an asterisk in the nation's long story.
I don't want to be an asterisk in my kids' lives. I don't want to be just some guy who sporadically appears and then disappears again.
2016, Charles [Wesley] Marshall, “More SkyMiles, Less Family”Note
The figurative step is short: whatever gets an asterisk is sent to the bottom of the page. It usually appears after a verb, as in being "an asterisk in my kids' lives". Andrew Ross Sorkin used the word to write off an event as historically irrelevant. Keep it apart from the sporting "blemish" sense. This asterisk makes something small, not suspect.
- 5An object or mark that resembles or is shaped like the asterisk symbol, with arms radiating from a central point.
The surgeon noted a scar in the shape of an asterisk where the wounds had healed together.
Using a crafting knife, cut a small asterisk shape in the center of each black circle. Gently pierce each asterisk with a wooden skewer to make a hole. Once done, simply insert your stove knobs, and you're almost ready!
2016, Courtney Sanchez, “Retro Stove”Similarstar
- 6A star-shaped instrument with radiating arms, placed over the diskos (or paten) during the Eucharist to keep the covering veil from touching the host.
Before the procession, the deacon set the asterisk over the diskos to support the veil.
The church's silver asterisk had been crafted to arch neatly above the host.
Note
In the Byzantine rite, this object's name carries a meaning beyond its shape. Symeon of Thessalonica reads the sacred vessels as a picture of heaven: the round diskos stands for the heavens, and the asterisk for the stars, especially the star at Christ's birth. In the Liturgy of John Chrysostom, it is the deacon who sets it on the diskos beneath the veil. English also calls it a star-cover.
Less common meaning
- 7A little star, and by extension any figure or object with a star-like shape.
The night sky in the painting was dotted with a hundred painted asterisks.
Add one Ray unto the common Luſtre; add not only to the Number but the Note of thy Generation; and prove not a Cloud but an Aſteriſk in thy Region.
c. 1670, Thomas Browne, “Sect[ion] XXXII”Similarstar
Note
The literal meaning behind every other use of the word comes from Late Latin asteriscus, from Greek asteriskos, both meaning "small star". Thomas Browne could still urge a reader to "prove not a Cloud but an Asterisk in thy Region", a little star shining in its own patch of sky. The sense now sounds dated. A modern reader hears asterisk first as the printed symbol, so a real small star is better called a star.
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Origin
The noun comes through Middle English asterisk from Late Latin asteriscus ("asterisk; small star"), which came from Ancient Greek asterískos ("small star"), formed from astḗr ("star or other light in the sky") plus a diminutive suffix meaning "little." The verb is derived from the noun.