Dagger (typography)

A dagger (†) is a typographical symbol or glyph. A double dagger (‡) is a variant with two "handles". It is also called an obelus, from a Greek word meaning "roasting spit" or "needle"; or obelisk, an alteration of the above (see obelisk).

The dagger is used to indicate a footnote, in the same way an asterisk is. However, the dagger is only used as a second footnote when an asterisk is already used. Third footnote employs the double daggers. Additional footnotes are somewhat inconsistent and represented by a variety of symbols, some of which are non-existent in early modern typography. Partly due to this, in modern literature, superscript numerals are used in the place of pictorial symbols.

Sometimes it is substituted in ASCII by a plus sign (+).

Since it also represents the Christian cross, in certain predominantly Christian regions, the mark is used in a text after the name of a deceased person or the date of death, as in Christian graves. (For examples, see biographies on German Wikipedia.)

The names of the comic-book heroes Astérix and Obélix come from a pun on the French names of the asterisk and the obelisk.