Eight-spoked asterisk

An ornamental asterisk from a printer's set of decorative symbols.

The keyboard * is small and sits high on the line. ✳ is the same idea drawn properly: eight evenly spaced spokes radiating from the centre, full-size, meant to stand on its own as an ornament. It comes from the Dingbats, the family of printer's decorations (stars, hands, check marks, flowers) that Unicode took over from the Zapf Dingbats typeface, which is why its neighbours include ✴, ❇ and a whole row of other stars and asterisks.

Japan's mobile carriers put this particular asterisk into their early emoji sets, and from there it became a standard emoji. Most phones and apps draw it in green, as of 2026, which is why many people know it simply as "the green asterisk" without ever having heard the official name.

What does ✳️ mean when someone uses it?

Almost always formatting; read its position, not its colour.

At the start of every line it is a bullet point, chosen because it stands out more than a dot in a plain text message, a product listing or a social-media bio. Between two phrases or at the end of a paragraph it is a divider, a visual breath. A row of them is a decorative rule.

In front of a sentence it does what an asterisk has always done: it says "note this" or "there's a catch" (✳️ Offer ends Friday, ✳️ Bring your own charger). This is the only reading with any content, and it is still about the words that follow, never about feelings. Sent on its own, with nothing attached, it is usually a stray tap or a small flourish, not a message you need to decode.