From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Asterisk \As"ter*isk\, noun [L. asteriscus, Gr. ?, dim. of 'asth'r star. See {Aster}.] The figure of a star, thus, ?, used in printing and writing as a reference to a passage or note in the margin, to supply the omission of letters or words, or to mark a word or phrase as having a special character.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: a star-shaped character * used in printing [syn: {star}]
verb
1: mark with an asterisk; "Linguists star unacceptable sentences" [syn: {star}]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
asterisk "*" {ASCII} code 42. Common names include: star; {INTERCAL}: {splat}; {ITU-T}: asterisk. Rare: {wild card}; gear; dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; {glob}; {Nathan Hale}. Commonly used as the multiplication operator and as the {Kleene star}. (2000-07-26)
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