Reference mark

The symbol was used historically to call attention to an important sentence or idea, such as a prologue or footnote.

[1] As an indicator of a note, the mark serves the same purpose as the asterisk in English.

However, in Japanese usage, the note text is placed directly into the main text immediately after the reference mark, rather than at the bottom of the page or end of chapter as is the case in English writing.

'reference mark') or mǐ xīnghào (Chinese: 米星号; lit.

In Unicode, the symbol has code point U+203B ※ REFERENCE MARK.