asterisk. (*)

This has many special uses, the most common of which is as a marker in a text to draw attention to a footnote, or in a handwritten document to signal an addition. It is also used, especially in older writing, to stand for letters omitted from coarse slang words, e.g. c**t, f**k. In linguistic usage, it denotes (1) a postulated (unrecorded) form of a word, and (2) an incorrect or deprecated usage, e.g. *They promised us to go.

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