There’s a sort of symbol used to separate sections of a text without moving into new chapters. They’re often used in essays. An example of this is seen in this book on poetry, right in the middle of the page:
What is this type of symbol called? Where can I find them so I can use them in Word documents?
Any help appreciated!
Looks like an underlined asterix. *
In a weird (edit)monospace typewriter(/edit) font.
I’ve seen many different types of symbols used to separate sections of essays without explicitly numbering them. But I don’t see any symbols of this sort in Word’s symbol bank, so I wonder if essayists generally just use whatever symbol they like most, or if editors and writers have some sort of special bank of essay-breaking symbols.
My SO in the publishing industry offers dinkus and **asterism. **I’m not sure either are 100% exactly what you mean though.
I looked them up on Google, and those actually are the sorts of symbols I’m looking for, but I can’t find how to make them in Word. Maybe I need to important the symbols from somewhere?
Note that the OP is after a name for this type of symbol (ie a small graphical element used to decorate a space break), not of the exact symbol in their example.
Yeah, thanks. I don’t know anything about typesetting, publishing, etc.
Edit: Askance is right that I am looking for a general category of suitable space break symbols, though the one in that specific book is rather pretty.
According to Wikipedia the asterism is Unicode 2042, so any decent word processor should have it.
… also I’ve seen rows of lozenges used in this context. The reference mark might also do.
No, Word provides them. Just go to the “fonts” bar and choose “webdings” or “wingdings” and you’ll find them.
Unfortunately, I only get an underline in Word. 
Bravely refraining from re-emphasizing decent word processor, I’ll just say yes, but the font in use need to have it too, and if it were anywhere it would be in a dingbats-style font as Colibri mentions.
Just curious, what do you consider a decent word processor? Understand that I’m completely clueless on this sort of thing.
I’m just being a clever dick about MS products, nevermind! I use Open office but I can’t find the Asterism in there either. Several fonts have the lozenge ◊ though, including Thorndate AMD.
My SO says that extreme punctuation like that tends to only come in special fonts such as arabesque ornaments, bodoni ornaments, or botanicalMT.
It also depends on which fonts you have installed on your computer. On Win-Tel machines,
Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Character Map
will list all fonts currently installed. It also makes Copy&Paste easier, and will give the Unicode and ALT-[Numpad] (if available) keystrokes to insert any character into your Word document.
To answer the OP’s question, that type of ornamental symbol could be properly called a filigree or a flourish. Some might argue that a filigree is generally more elaborate in detail but the dictionary definitions fit. I’d probably go with flourish.
Noun definition 2b:
Is there not, then, any special term for a symbol used to separate paragraphs into sections within an essay?
Fair enough.