Keycap: * Emoji

Symbols

A dark square keycap featuring a bold white asterisk in the center. It mimics the look of a physical button found on standard telephone keypads, calculators, and computer number pads.

Usage Context

Widely used to denote a wildcard character, a footnote, or a correction in text messages. It is frequently sent alongside other symbols like #⃣ to simulate the experience of navigating an automated phone menu or inputting a PIN.

History

Debuting in Unicode 3.0 in 1999, this character was standardized to ensure that digital displays could replicate the specific button layouts used by international telecommunications equipment and early mobile device interfaces.

Details

Glyph

*⃣

Unicode

U+002A U+20E3

Shortcode

:emoji_u002a_20e3:

HTML Entity

*⃣

Specifications

Vendor Google

Category Symbols

Subcategory keycap

Unicode Version 6.0

Emoji Version 1.0

License CC-BY 4.0

Google Noto License

Emoji graphics by Twitter/X, licensed under CC-BY 4.0

Noto Color Emoji graphics are copyrighted by Google Inc. and licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Font files may also be subject to the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

Apache 2.0 SIL OFL 1.1 Noto Repository