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I've been on a search for a while now but I can't figure out the term for this design element. I'm not even really sure what to look up. I tried going through terms associated with typography but no dice. You find it used a lot in vintage texts like newspaper ads and wanted posters where identical symbols would be used on either side of a large bold text to create emphasis. Sometimes the symbols would be stars, sometimes dots, and sometimes these sharp darts. enter image description here

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Flourishes, ornaments, fleurons, dingbats, embellishments.

Basically any term which describes additional, possibly unnecessary, ornamental, items. There's no real specific typography term.
(Except perhaps dingbat which designates a font file containing non-alphanumeric glyhs.
And fleuron generally refers to more "flowery" ornamental glyphs.)

In the sample image, the rules above and below are as much flourishes, ornaments, embellishments, as the diamonds.

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  • My brain has been expanded with wonderful new terms today like "fleuron" and "line-shaped dinkus" due to this answer. Thank you.
    – ZarHakkar
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 22:48
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    Never heard "dinkus".. that seems like a jovial term. 😀 Looking it up, dinkus seems to specifically refer to three asterisks in a row. So now, you've also expanded my terminology. 😃 I forgot fleuron.. added to answer.
    – Scott
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 22:57
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The rules above and below (of which there are fancier versions) are also sometimes referred to as dividers.

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    Yes, but it appears the question is not about those.
    – lmlmlm
    Commented Oct 25, 2022 at 11:04

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