A dagger, obelisk, or obelus† is a
typographical mark that usually indicates a
footnote if an
asterisk has already been used.[1] The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages).[2] It is one of the modern descendants of the
obelus, a mark used historically by scholars as a critical or highlighting indicator in manuscripts. In older texts, it is called an obelisk.[3][a]
A double dagger or diesis‡ is a variant with two
hilts and
crossguards that usually marks a third footnote after the asterisk and dagger.[5] The triple dagger⹋ is a variant with three crossguards and is used by
medievalists to indicate another level of notation.[6]
The dagger symbol originated from a variant of the
obelus, originally depicted by a plain line − or a line with one or two dots ÷.[7] It represented an iron roasting spit, a dart, or the sharp end of a
javelin,[8] symbolizing the skewering or cutting out of dubious matter.[9][10][11]
The obelus is believed to have been invented by the
Homeric scholarZenodotus as one of a system of editorial symbols. They marked questionable or corrupt words or passages in manuscripts of the
Homeric epics.[4][9] The system was further refined by his student
Aristophanes of Byzantium, who first introduced the
asterisk and used a symbol resembling a ⊤ for an obelus; and finally by Aristophanes' student, in turn,
Aristarchus, from whom they earned the name of "
Aristarchian symbols".[12][13]
While the asterisk (asteriscus) was used for corrective additions, the obelus was used for corrective deletions of invalid reconstructions.[14] It was used when non-attested words are reconstructed for the sake of argument only, implying that the author did not believe such a word or word form had ever existed. Some scholars used the obelus and various other critical symbols, in conjunction with a second symbol known as the metobelos ("end of obelus"),[15] variously represented as two vertically arranged dots, a γ-like symbol, a mallet-like symbol, or a diagonal slash (with or without one or two dots). They indicated the end of a marked passage.[16]
It was used much in the same way by later scholars to mark differences between various translations or versions of the
Bible and other manuscripts.[17] The
early ChristianAlexandrian scholar
Origen (
c. 184 – c. 253 AD) used it to indicate differences between different versions of the
Old Testament in his Hexapla.[12][15][18]Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403) used both a horizontal slash or hook (with or without dots) and an upright and slightly slanting dagger to represent an obelus.
St. Jerome (c. 347–420) used a simple horizontal slash for an obelus, but only for passages in the Old Testament.[19] He describes the use of the asterisk and the dagger as: "an asterisk makes a light shine, the obelisk cuts and pierces".[11]
Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) described the use of the symbol as follows: "The obelus is appended to words or phrases uselessly repeated, or else where the passage involves a false reading, so that, like the arrow, it lays low the superfluous and makes the errors disappear ... The obelus accompanied by points is used when we do not know whether a passage should be suppressed or not."[10]
Medieval scribes used the symbols extensively for critical markings of manuscripts. In addition to this, the dagger was also used in notations in early
Christianity, to indicate a minor intermediate pause in the
chanting of
Psalms, equivalent to the
quaver rest notation or the trope symbol in
Hebrew cantillation. It also indicates a breath mark when reciting, along with the asterisk, and is thus frequently seen beside a
comma.[20][21]
In the 16th century, the printer and scholar
Robert Estienne (also known as Stephanus in
Latin and Stephens in English) used it to mark differences in the words or passages between different printed versions of the Greek
New Testament (Textus Receptus).[22]
Due to the variations as to the different uses of the different forms of the obelus, there is some controversy as to which symbols can actually be considered an obelus. The ⨪ symbol and its variant, the ÷, is sometimes considered to be different from other obeli. The term 'obelus' may have referred strictly only to the horizontal slash and the dagger symbols.[citation needed]
Modern usage
The dagger usually indicates a
footnote if an asterisk has already been used.[1] A third footnote employs the double dagger.[5] Additional footnotes are somewhat inconsistent and represented by a variety of symbols, e.g.,
parallels ( ‖ ),
section sign§, and the
pilcrow¶ – some of which were nonexistent in early modern
typography. Partly because of this,
superscriptnumerals have increasingly been used in modern literature in the place of these symbols, especially when several footnotes are required. Some texts use asterisks and daggers alongside superscripts, using the former for per-page footnotes and the latter for
endnotes.
The dagger is also used to indicate
death,[5][23]extinction,[24] or
obsolescence.[1][25] The asterisk and the dagger, when placed beside years, indicate year of birth and year of death respectively.[5] This usage is particularly common in
German.[26] When placed immediately before or after a person's name, the dagger indicates that the person is deceased.[5][27][28][29] In this usage, it is referred to as the "death dagger".[30] In the Oxford English Dictionary, the dagger symbol indicates an obsolete word.[25]
The asteroid
37 Fides, the last asteroid to be assigned an
astronomical symbol before the practice faded, was assigned the dagger.
In
Anglican chant pointing, the dagger indicates a verse to be sung to the second part of the chant.
In some early printed
Bible translations, a dagger or double dagger indicates that a literal translation of a word or phrase is to be found in the margin.
In library
cataloging, a double dagger delimits
MARC subfields.
In
chess notation, the dagger may be suffixed to a move to signify the move resulted in a check, and a double dagger denotes checkmate. This is a stylistic variation on the more common + (
plus sign) for a check and # (
number sign) for checkmate.
In
chemistry, the double dagger is used in chemical kinetics to indicate a
transition state species.
In
genealogy, the dagger is used traditionally to mark a death in genealogical records.[33]
In
linguistics, the dagger placed after a language name indicates an extinct language.
Some
logicians use the dagger as an affirmation ('it is true that ...') operator.[34]
The
palochka is transliterated to a double dagger in the
ISO 9 standard for converting
Cyrillic to Latin
In psychological statistics the dagger indicates that a difference between two figures is not
significant to a p<0.05 level, however is still considered a "trend" or worthy of note. Commonly this will be used for a p-value between 0.1 and 0.05.
In
mathematics and, more often,
physics, a dagger denotes the
Hermitian adjoint of an operator; for example, A† denotes the adjoint of A. This notation is sometimes replaced with an asterisk, especially in mathematics. An operator is said to be Hermitian if A† = A.[35]
In
philology, the dagger indicates an obsolete form of a word or phrase.[1] As language that has become obsolete in everyday use tends to live on elsewhere, the dagger can indicate language only occurring in poetical texts[36] or "restricted to an archaic, literary style".[37]
In
textual criticism and in some editions of works written before the invention of printing, daggers enclose text that is believed not to be original.[12]
While daggers are freely used in English-language texts, they are often avoided in other languages because of their similarity to the Christian cross.[citation needed]
Encoding
U+2020†DAGGER
U+2021‡DOUBLE DAGGER
U+2E36⸶DAGGER WITH LEFT GUARD – used in
Alexander John Ellis's "palaeotype" transliteration to indicate retracted pronunciation[38]
U+2E37⸷DAGGER WITH RIGHT GUARD – used in Alexander John Ellis's "palaeotype" transliteration to indicate advanced pronunciation[38]
U+2E38⸸TURNED DAGGER – used in Alexander John Ellis's "palaeotype" transliteration to indicate retroflex pronunciation[38]
U+2E4B⹋TRIPLE DAGGER – A variant with three handles.[6]
Typing the character
Single dagger:
In HTML: †
Windows: Alt+0134
MacOS: ⌥ Option+T
Linux: it appears there is no
compose key sequence, but you can type ⇧ Shift+Ctrl+U2020↵ Enter
^The terms obelus and obelisk derive from the
Greek: ὀβελίσκος (obeliskos), which means "little obelus"; from ὀβελός (obelos) meaning '
roasting spit'.[4]
^Ainsworth, William Harrison, ed. (1862).
The New Monthly Magazine. Vol. 125. Chapman and Hall. p. 1 – via Google Books.
^
abScanlin, Harold P. (1998).
"A New Edition of Origen's Hexapla: How It Might Be Done". In Salvesen, Alison (ed.). Origen's Hexapla and Fragments: Papers Presented at the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 25th July – 3rd August 1994. "Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism" series. Mohr Siebeck. p. 439.
ISBN9783161465758.
^
abTudge, Colin (2000).
"Conventions for Naming Taxa". The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of All the Creatures That Have Ever Lived. Oxford University Press. p. 93.
ISBN9780198604266 – via Google Books.
^Komitees des Vereins Herold [Editorial Committee of the Herold Association], ed. (1912) [1897].
Genealogisches Handbuch bürgerlicher Familien [Genealogical Handbook of Burgher families] (in German). Vol. 5. Görlitz: C. A. Starke. Archived from
the original on 18 March 2017 – via Mazowiecka Biblioteka Cyfrowa (Masovian Digital Library).
^Lennard, John, ed. (2005).
"Punctuation". The Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism. Oxford University Press. p. 140.
ISBN9780199265381 – via Google Books.
^"Author Line". The APS Online Style Manual. American Psychological Society. Archived from
the original on 31 March 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
^Jones, Michael Alan (1996). Foundations of French Syntax. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. xxv.
ISBN0-521-38104-5.