Asterism (typography)
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apostrophe ( ', ’ ) |
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ampersand ( & ) |
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asterism ( ⁂ ) |
In typography, an asterism is a rarely used symbol consisting of three asterisks placed in a triangle, used to call attention to a passage or to separate sub-chapters in a book. It is Unicode character U+2042: [⁂].
Often, this symbol is replaced with three, sometimes more, consecutive asterisks or dots. Otherwise, an extra space between paragraphs is used. An asterism or its analogue may be used in conjunction with the extra space to mark a smaller subdivision than a subchapter.
It should not be confused with the similar-looking Chinese character 森, meaning "forest", composed of three "tree" radicals 木 in the same formation. It should also not be confused with ∴ (Unicode character U+2234), which is made of three dots. This symbol is used as a shorthand form of "therefore", and its inverted form ∵ is sometimes used as a shorthand form of "because".
