dinkus
nounEtymology From dinky (“tiny and cute”). The word was coined by an artist on the Australian periodical The Bulletin in the 1920s.
1
A small drawing or artwork used for decoration in a magazine or periodical.
2
Media, Publishing, Typography A small ornament, usually a line of three asterisks (* * *), especially for the purpose of breaking up sections of a chapter, article, or other text.
- More generally a dinkus is a small ornamentation, usually three asterisks, that break up sections of a book chapter, article or other written text.2023 January 31, Elisabeth Ribbans, “The perils of using journalist jargon outside the newsroom”, in The Guardian: