An asterisk indicates that a word has multiple endings, and you'd like to search for all forms of the word. A common example is "child." Forms include "children," "childish," "childlike," "childhood," and many more. If I search for "child*", the search engine will give me results for all forms of the word, not just "child."
Academic Search Premier Results:
- child AND dog
- child* AND dog
An asterisk allows for searching both the singular and the plural forms of “baking show” at the same time.
JSTOR Results: