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I know that *args and **kwargs are ways to feed more arguments into a function in Python.

I am wondering where these terms stem from. Why have all the asterisks in the beginning? What does the kw in kwargs stand for?

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    What part of docs.python.org/reference/… is confusing? It seems very clear. Can you provide the specific words or phrases that confuse you?
    – S.Lott
    Jan 23, 2012 at 19:51
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    @S.Lott What part of the documentation touches on the origin of the notation?
    – user7043
    Jan 23, 2012 at 19:52
  • "What does the kw in kwargs stand for?" seems to be quite clearly defined. The "origin" for all of Python is either in a PEP (20%) or in the head of the BDFL (80%).
    – S.Lott
    Jan 23, 2012 at 19:57
  • @root45: Please post your answer as an answer.
    – S.Lott
    Jan 23, 2012 at 19:58
  • @S.Lott content update, the page you're linking doesn't mention at any point the string kwargs and only three times args, but in places where it doesn't answers the OP's question
    – Nino Filiu
    Apr 14, 2019 at 21:04

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The "kw" stands for Key Word because the dictionary that you pass in is expanded to a sequence of key-word pair arguments. As to "Why have all the asterisks in the beginning?" I ask you, why not have them?

My hypothesis as to why the * characters were chosen is that they frequently have a wildcard meaning (e.g., in regular expressions or globing). This is just guess-work though and I have nothing to document that.

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    In C, they mean "pointer to", as in "indirect reference". Maybe that's why they were chosen.
    – S.Lott
    Jan 23, 2012 at 20:08

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