The circled dot, circumpunct, or circle with a point at its centre may refer to one or more glyphs, graphemes or concepts.

Solar system

  • One of many solar symbols used to represent the Sun
  • (Planet symbol in astronomy)
  • Gold (Alchemical symbols: planetary metals)
  • Gardiner N5 (): The sun, part of the representation of the name of Ra in Egyptian hieroglyphs. (This hieroglyph is shown conventionally with a small circle (rather than a dot) with the larger circle.
  • The sun / a day (Chinese oracle script, the modern character being 日)

Philosophy and psychology

  • Self in Jungian psychology: "The central dot represents the Ego whereas the Self can be said to consist of the whole with the centred dot."
  • Monism: "The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being, the Monad or The Absolute"

Language and linguistics

  • Bilabial clicks (), a symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
  • Hwair (), a letter in the Gothic alphabet
  • Yas (), a letter in the Tifinagh Alphabet (Berber languages)
  • Brāhmī letter th ()
  • Eye (Blissymbols)
  • A brief contact (brush) of the signing hand in SignWriting

Mathematics

  • The mathematical operator represents
  • the XNOR gate or
  • the Hadamard product, the element wise multiplication of matrices of same size denoted by <math>A \odot B</math>
  • The mathematical operator (see Unicode Supplemental Mathematical Operators)
  • In geometry, it is often the symbol for a circle

Computing

  • (Unicode Geometric Shapes)
  • An indication of selected choice of radio button
  • the application launcher key on Chromebooks (also known as the "everything key")
  • In Japan, the symbol is called tainome and is a kind of typographical "bullet"

Other uses

  • A nazar is a circled-dot-shaped amulet
  • Center of pressure
  • The musical symbol for (), a Mensuration sign for meter
  • Used, or cancelled, stamp (philately)
  • The trademark of the Target Corporation
  • As a Masonic symbol
  • City centre (European road-signs)
  • End of trail / End of the game. Gone home. (scouting)
  • The Symbol of "Waterhole" (or a related concept) in Indigenous Australian Art
  • In German stamp catalogues, it is symbol for a "Gestempelte Briefmarke" (canceled stamp), while a star means "postfrisch" (mint Stamp)
  • In physics, it can be used to denote a vector facing out of the page
  • Zugzwang in chess notation

See also

  • Bullseye (disambiguation)
  • The Lost Symbol – a novel by Dan Brown that uses this symbol; seen stylistically for in the logo for the spinoff TV series

References