Arabic star
| ٭ | |
|---|---|
Arabic star | |
| In Unicode | U+066D ٭ ARABIC FIVE POINTED STAR |
The Arabic star is a punctuation mark developed to be distinct from the asterisk (*). The asterisk had previously existed, and the original shape of the asterisk was six-pointed, each point like a teardrop coming from the center. However, some typewriters had difficulty printing the six arms distinctly.
The Arabic star is given a distinct character in Unicode, U+066D ٭ ARABIC FIVE POINTED STAR (HTML ٭ · noted: "Appearance rather variable"), in the range Arabic punctuation.[1]
Variants[]
In many modern fonts, however, the asterisk is five-pointed, and the Arabic star is sometimes six- or eight-pointed. The two symbols are compared below (the display depends on your browser's font).
| Asterisk | Full-width Asterisk | Arabic star | five-pointed star | six-pointed star | eight-pointed star |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| * | ＊ | ٭ | ★ | ✶ | ✴ |
Unicode[]
In Unicode, Arabic and similar stars are encoded at:
- U+066D ٭ ARABIC FIVE POINTED STAR (HTML ٭)
- U+06DE ۞ ARABIC START OF RUB EL HIZB (HTML ۞)
In some displays, the use of the ٭ character can cause the text directionality to change.[2]
See also[]
References[]
External links[]
 | This typography-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by . |
- Arabic punctuation and symbols
- Typography stubs