wild·card /ˈwaɪld.kɑːd/ n. pl. wildcards
1. a playing card that can stand for any other. 2. fig. a versatile person who can be put anywhere in a team; knows many fields and joins them in a single task: an architect who writes code; a developer who understands construction. 3. computing a character such as * that matches any sequence of characters.
Etym. wild + card, from card games. Cf. joker, generalist, polymath.