How to use asterisk in a sentence

18 example sentences · noun, verb

Asterisk means a small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star. Example: “They came into the tournament highly ranked, but with a little bit of an asterisk as their last two wins had been unconvincing.”

Examples of asterisk by meaning

nounThe star-shaped symbol *, which is used in printing and writing for various purposes, including to refer a reader to a...

For the first time on British Railways, so far as we are aware, a substantial timetable has been produced, not only without a single footnote but also devoid of all wearisome asterisks, stars, letter suffixes and other hieroglyphics.1960 December, “The Glasgow Suburban Electrification is Opened”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 714
The Times doesn’t even give it an asterisk or two.1998 February 16, John Heilpern, “Shopping and Fucking: Is that all there is?”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN...
Data were collected from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Nutrition Coordination Center (NCC) Carotenoid Database (Holden et al., 1999) and correspond to raw foods unless indicated with an asterisc (cooked) or two asteriscs (canned).2012, Úrsula Flores-Perez, Manuel Rodriguez-Concepcion, “Carotenoids”, in Andrew Salter, Helen Wiseman, Gregory Tucker, editors...

nounSomething resembling or shaped like an asterisk symbol.

Using a crafting knife, cut a small asterisk shape in the center of each black circle.2016, Courtney Sanchez, “Retro Stove”, in DIY Box Creations: Fun and Creative Projects to Make out of Really Big Boxes!, Lake Forest...

nounSomething which is of little importance or which is marginal; a footnote.

I don't want to be an asterisk in my kids' lives.2016, Charles [Wesley] Marshall, “More SkyMiles, Less Family”, in The Good Dad Guide, Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, →ISBN, part 6...

nounA blemish in an otherwise outstanding achievement.

They came into the tournament highly ranked, but with a little bit of an asterisk as their last two wins had been unconvincing.

nounAn instrument with radiating arms resembling a star which is placed over the diskos (or paten) used during the...

The asterisk is one of the sacred objects used in the Byzantine rite.1962, Marvin C. Ross, “Copper”, in Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, volume 1...
What is called the ‘asterisk’ represents the stars, especially the one at the birth of Christ, just as the veils represent the firmament, the swaddling clothes, the shroud, and the burial cloths.2013, Bryan D[ouglas] Spinks, quoting Symeon of Thessalonica (in translation), “The Eucharist and Anaphoras of the Byzantine Synthesis”, in...

verbTo mark or replace (text, etc.) with an asterisk symbol (*; noun sense 1.1); to star.

She was determined to make the most of the trip, extracting some cultural capital from the emotional waste, and so read carefully through the Venice guidebooks she had brought, underlining the must-dos and asterisking the should-dos.2003, Rebecca Campbell, “Odette in Venice”, in Slave to Love […], New York, N.Y.: Villard Books, →ISBN, page 95

More sentences with asterisk

Notice that an asterisk has been added to the filename in the edit window tabs.2008, Stephen R. G. Fraser, Real World ASP.NET: Building a Content Management System, page 105. From the entry dirty
Recall that if asterisks are pre- and postpended they designate semantic information in f-structures.1991, Kenneth Goodman, The KBMT Project, →ISBN. From the entry postpend
Animals expressing the sGFP control protein efficiently secrete GFP out of the intestine (int) into the pseudocelomic space (A, asterisks).2015 October 30, “Deficient and Null Variants of SERPINA1 Are Proteotoxic in a Caenorhabditis elegans Model of α1-Antitrypsin Deficiency”…. From the entry pseudocelomic
The "bugs" are the asterisks next to the apprentice's name.1999, Anita Scialli, Inside Track 1999, page 62. From the entry bug
More generally a dinkus is a small ornamentation, usually three asterisks, that break up sections of a book chapter, article or other written text.2023 January 31, Elisabeth Ribbans, “The perils of using journalist jargon outside the newsroom”, in The Guardian. From the entry dinkus
Residue identities are marked with an asterisk, conserved substitutions are marked with a colon, and semiconserved substitutions are marked with a period.2015 September 19, “Serine 363 of a Hydrophobic Region of Archaeal Ribulose 1,5-Bisphosphate Carboxylase/Oxygenase from Archaeoglobus…. From the entry semiconserved
The word handly has no asterisk because it is in fact recorded several times in Middle English, and with precisely the meaning 'manual'.[2009, Philip Durkin, The Oxford guide to etymology. From the entry handly
It is this euphemistic use of the asterisk that is doubtless responsible for the sign's regular inclusion in the cartoonists maledicta balloon.1985, Alexander Humez with Nicholas D. Humez, ABC Et Cetera: The Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet, page 9. From the entry maledicta balloon
Howard Baker, then a Senator, had dubbed them the "magic asterisk," for it was blithely assumed that they would be taken care of at a later date.1991, Wallace C. Peterson, Transfer Spending, Taxes, and the American Welfare State, Kluwer Academic Publishers, section 99. From the entry magic asterisk

Meaning of asterisk

noun A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.
noun The star-shaped symbol *, which is used in printing and writing for various purposes, including to refer a reader to a note at the bottom of a page or in a margin, and to indicate the omission of letters or words; a star.
noun Something resembling or shaped like an asterisk symbol.

Full definition of asterisk

Questions about asterisk in a sentence

How do you use asterisk in a sentence?: Asterisk is used as a noun and verb. For example: “They came into the tournament highly ranked, but with a little bit of an asterisk as their last two wins had been unconvincing.”
What is a short sentence with asterisk?: “The "bugs" are the asterisks next to the apprentice's name.”
What does asterisk mean?: Asterisk means a small star; also (by extension), something resembling or shaped like a star.

Adapted from Wiktionary: asterisk (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use asterisk in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/asterisk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.