Why is dingbat used to refer to characters such as "☺"?
(See for instance those at the Mozilla Web Developer FAQ.)
Doesn't dingbat mean a stupid person or something?
Learn English – Why is “dingbat” used to refer to characters like “☺”
etymologynounstypography
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Best Answer
A dingbat is "an ornamental piece of type for borders, separators, decorations, etc." as well as a silly person. The fonts are called dingbat fonts because they contain such characters.
The word's etymology leads me to believe that it is a generic word, akin to widget, doohickey, and thingamajig.