asterisk [LME] The Greeks had two words for ‘star’, astēr and astron. They go back to an ancient root that is also the source of the Latin word stella, which gave us *star itself and also stellar [M17th]. An asterisk is a little star, the meaning of its source, Greek asteriskos. Asteriskos is from astēr, which is also the root of asteroeidēs, ‘star-like’. This entered English in the early 19th century as asteroid [E19th], a term coined by the astronomer William Herschel. Astēr also gave us our name for the plant aster [E18th], which has petals rather like an asterisk. Words beginning with astro- come from astron. In the Middle Ages astronomy [ME] covered not only astronomy but astrology [LME] too. The Greek word it descends from meant ‘star-arranging’. Rather poetically, an astronaut [1920s] is literally a ‘star sailor’. The word comes from Greek astron ‘star’ and nautēs ‘sailor’. It was modelled on aeronaut [L18th], a word for a traveller in a hot-air balloon or airship. Cosmonaut [1950s], the Russian equivalent of astronaut, literally means ‘sailor in the cosmos’. See also disaster.