The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Asterisk \As"ter*isk\, n. [L. asteriscus, Gr. ?, dim. of 'asth`r
   star. See Aster.]
   The figure of a star, thus, ?, used in printing and writing
   as a reference to a passage or note in the margin, to supply
   the omission of letters or words, or to mark a word or phrase
   as having a special character.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

asterisk
    n 1: a star-shaped character * used in printing [syn:
         asterisk, star]
    v 1: mark with an asterisk; "Linguists star unacceptable
         sentences" [syn: star, asterisk]

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

asterisk
*

    "*" ASCII code 42.  Common names include: star;
   INTERCAL: splat; ITU-T: asterisk.  Rare: wild card;
   gear; dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob;
   Nathan Hale.

   Commonly used as the multiplication operator and as the
   Kleene star.  Often doubled, as in "x**2", to mean "to the
   power".  In C and related languages, asterisk is used as the
   dereference operator, "*p" meaning "the thing pointed to by
   p".

   (2006-09-10)