"Kleene star" meaning in English

See Kleene star in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Kleene stars [plural]
Etymology: After Stephen Cole Kleene (1909-1994), American mathematician. Head templates: {{en-noun}} Kleene star (plural Kleene stars)
  1. (logic, computing theory) The asterisk, *, used as an operator to concatenate zero or more strings from a given set, widely used in regular expressions. Synonyms: Kleene operator Related terms: Kleene closure, star height Coordinate_terms: Kleene plus Translations (Translations): звезда на Клини (zvezda na Klini) [feminine] (Bulgarian), Kleenen tähti (Finnish), étoile de Kleene [feminine] (French)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "After Stephen Cole Kleene (1909-1994), American mathematician.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Kleene stars",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Kleene star (plural Kleene stars)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Bulgarian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Logic",
          "orig": "en:Logic",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Regular expressions",
          "orig": "en:Regular expressions",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Theory of computing",
          "orig": "en:Theory of computing",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "Kleene plus"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The asterisk, *, used as an operator to concatenate zero or more strings from a given set, widely used in regular expressions."
      ],
      "id": "en-Kleene_star-en-noun-hwVLNAxS",
      "links": [
        [
          "logic",
          "logic"
        ],
        [
          "computing",
          "computing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "theory",
          "theory"
        ],
        [
          "asterisk",
          "asterisk"
        ],
        [
          "*",
          "*"
        ],
        [
          "operator",
          "operator"
        ],
        [
          "concatenate",
          "concatenate"
        ],
        [
          "set",
          "set"
        ],
        [
          "regular expression",
          "regular expression"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(logic, computing theory) The asterisk, *, used as an operator to concatenate zero or more strings from a given set, widely used in regular expressions."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Kleene closure"
        },
        {
          "word": "star height"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Kleene operator"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computing",
        "computing-theory",
        "engineering",
        "human-sciences",
        "logic",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "philosophy",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "bg",
          "lang": "Bulgarian",
          "lang_code": "bg",
          "roman": "zvezda na Klini",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "звезда на Клини"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "Kleenen tähti"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "lang_code": "fr",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "étoile de Kleene"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Kleene star"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "After Stephen Cole Kleene (1909-1994), American mathematician.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Kleene stars",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Kleene star (plural Kleene stars)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Kleene closure"
    },
    {
      "word": "star height"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Bulgarian translations",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss",
        "en:Logic",
        "en:Regular expressions",
        "en:Theory of computing"
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "Kleene plus"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The asterisk, *, used as an operator to concatenate zero or more strings from a given set, widely used in regular expressions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "logic",
          "logic"
        ],
        [
          "computing",
          "computing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "theory",
          "theory"
        ],
        [
          "asterisk",
          "asterisk"
        ],
        [
          "*",
          "*"
        ],
        [
          "operator",
          "operator"
        ],
        [
          "concatenate",
          "concatenate"
        ],
        [
          "set",
          "set"
        ],
        [
          "regular expression",
          "regular expression"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(logic, computing theory) The asterisk, *, used as an operator to concatenate zero or more strings from a given set, widely used in regular expressions."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Kleene operator"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computing",
        "computing-theory",
        "engineering",
        "human-sciences",
        "logic",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "philosophy",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "bg",
      "lang": "Bulgarian",
      "lang_code": "bg",
      "roman": "zvezda na Klini",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "звезда на Клини"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "Kleenen tähti"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "lang_code": "fr",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "étoile de Kleene"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Kleene star"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (6fdc867 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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