Named white, drawn gold, and absent from 1.7 million characters of text

This is the star that means "rate it." Officially "White Medium Star," it's the single glyph doing duty behind five-star reviews, favourited items, and the little burst you tap to bookmark something — one small shape carrying an enormous amount of the internet's approval machinery. Curiously, its official name calls it white while most systems render it a solid gold; the "white" refers to the hollow outline in the original character chart, not the colour your phone paints it.

As plain expression it reads as excellence, wishes, and a touch of sparkle — "you're a star," a standout performance, a wish made on the first one of the night. It's warmer and more celebratory than the austere stars used in typesetting.

The practical thing to know is that this is the emoji star, distinct from the older typographic stars that predate it. If you're building a rating display and want reliable colour and sizing, the plain black and outlined stars behave more predictably as text; this one is designed to arrive as a full-colour emoji, which is exactly what you want in a message and exactly what you may not want buried in a paragraph of body copy.