asterisk
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "asterisk", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "asterisk" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "asterisk" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
asterisk is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star. Pronounced /ˈæstəɹɪsk/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | asterisk |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæstəɹɪsk/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #27,058 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for asterisk is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæstəɹɪsk/. Corpus data places it at rank #27,058 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for asterisk, with forms such as "asetrisk", "assterisk", and "asteirsk". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is derived from Middle English asterisk [and other forms], from Late Latin asteriscus (“asterisk; small star”), from Ancient Greek ἀστερῐ́σκος (asterĭ́skos, “asterisk; small star”), from ᾰ̓στήρ (ăstḗr, “celestial body (star, planet, and other light… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is asterisk, spelled A-S-T-E-R-I-S-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
- 2A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
- 3A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
- 4A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
- 5A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
- 6A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English asterisk [and other forms], from Late Latin asteriscus (“asterisk; small star”), from Ancient Greek ἀστερῐ́σκος (asterĭ́skos, “asterisk; small star”), from ᾰ̓στήρ (ăstḗr, “celestial body (star, planet, and other lights in the sky such as meteors)”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eHs- (“to burn; to glow”)) + -ῐ́σκος (-ĭ́skos, diminutive suffix). Doublet of asteriscus and piecewise doublet of starrish. Noun sense 1.1.2 (“something which is of little importance or which is marginal”) refers to the use of an asterisk to denote a footnote or marginal note in a text; in other words, information that is not important enough to be incorporated into the main text. Noun sense 1.1.3 (“blemish in an otherwise outstanding achievement”) refers to the use of an asterisk in a sporting record to indicate that the record is qualified in some manner (for example, that the sportsperson was found to have taken performance-enhancing drugs at the time). The verb is derived from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asetrisk,assterisk,asteirsk,asteriks,asteriskk,asterissk,asterrisk,astersik,astreisk,astterisk,atserisk,saterisk
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for asterisk
Misspelling Variants of "asterisk"
Frequency rank: #27,058 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: