{{Short description|Symbol used in astrology and telephony}} {{about|the symbol and its uses|American post-punk band|Sextile (band)}} {{infobox symbol |mark=⚹ |unicode={{unichar|26B9}} | see also= {{ubl|{{unichar|26BA}} | {{unichar|FF0A}} |{{unichar|1F7B5}} }} |different from = {{unichar2|*}} }} The '''sextile''' is an aspect in Astrology, a symbol to represent that aspect, and a typographical symbol used in telephony. The symbol represents the radii of a hexagon.
==Astrology== thumb|upright=0.75|Sextile astrological symbol, E.161 "figure 2" <!-- Required because the default fonts on MacBooks do not have a glyph for this codepoint (!) --> In astrology, a sextile aspect is one of 60º, which is {{frac|1|6}} of the 360° ecliptic or {{frac|1|2}} a trine (120°). Depending on the involved planets, an orb of 4-5° is allowed.
==Other uses== The more notable of the other uses of the symbol are as a star key on a telephone keypad<ref name="E.161">{{cite web |url=https://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?lang=e&id=T-REC-E.161-200102-I!!PDF-E&type=items |title=Arrangement of digits, letters and symbols on telephones and other devices that can be used for gaining access to a telephone network |publisher=International Telecommunication Union |last=Telecommunications Standardization Sector of ITU |at=3.2.2 Symbols |quote=On the 4 × 3 array, the symbol on the button [...] should have a shape easily identified as the general shape shown in Figure 2. [...] The symbol will be known as the ''star'' or the equivalent term in other languages.}}</ref> and on a Viewdata keyboard. This usage first appeared in a 1973 US patent filing (3,920,926).<ref>{{cite patent | country=US |number=3920926 |title=TELEPHONE DATA SET INCLUDING VISUAL DISPLAY MEANS |invent1=George Victor Lenaerts |invent2=Eric Egils Auzins |status=patent | gdate = November 18, 1975 | fdate = December 7, 1973 |assign1=Northern Electric Company Ltd, Montreal, Canada | url = https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/3920926}} "The pad 1 provides keys for numerals 0 to 9, while the sextile or asterisk ({{nbsp}}*{{nbsp}}) key is decoded to provide a decimal point and the octothorp ({{nbsp}}#{{nbsp}}) key generates a command [etc]"</ref> Early prototypes of the touch-tone telephone used keys with a star and diamond shape. According to Bell engineer Doug Kerr, these were replaced with the sextile and octothorpe because those could be typed or approximated with the ASCII character set or an office typewriter.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Losh |first1=Elizabeth |title=Hashtag |date=19 September 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-1-5013-4428-2 |pages=12–15 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hashtag/HKCpDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>
==See also== * French Republican calendar, in which a leap year was called {{lang|fr|sextile}} * {{section link|Star (grapheme)|Six points}}
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Astrological aspects