cipher
14th century. From Middle English cifre, from Old French cyfre, cyffre (French chiffre), ultimately from Arabic صِفْر, from صَفَرَ ("to be empty"). Pronunciation Noun
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14th century. From Middle English cifre, from Old French cyfre, cyffre (French chiffre), ultimately from Arabic صِفْر, from صَفَرَ ("to be empty"). Pronunciation Noun
cipher (plural ciphers)
- A numeric character.
- Any text character.
- This wisdom began to be written in ciphers and characters and letters bearing the forms of creatures.
- A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name; a device; a monogram.
- a painter's cipher, an engraver's cipher, etc.
- A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
- The message was written in a simple cipher. Anyone could figure it out.
- His father […] engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher.
- (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
- Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.
- The message is clearly a cipher, but I can't figure it out.
- A grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited by commas or periods:
- The probability is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 — a number having five ciphers of zeros.
- (music) A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.
- A hip-hop jam session.
- The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
- Someone or something of no importance.
- Here he was a mere cipher.
- (dated) Zero.
- (numeric character) number, numeral
- (method for concealing the meaning of text) code
- (cryptographic system using an algorithm)
- (ciphertext)
- (a grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited)
- (design of interlacing initials) monogram
- (fault in an organ valve causing a pipe to sound continuously)
- (hip-hop jam session)
- (path that shared cannabis takes through a group)
- (someone or something of no importance) (person): nobody, nonentity, see also Thesaurus:nonentity; (thing) nonentity, nothing, nullity
- (obsolete: zero) naught/nought, nothing, oh, zero
- French: chiffre
- German: Ziffer
- Italian: cifra
- Portuguese: algarismo, cifra
- Russian: ци́фра
- Spanish: cifra
- German: Verschlüsselung
- Portuguese: cifra
- Russian: шифр
- Spanish: cifra
- German: Verschlüsselungssystem
- Portuguese: cifra
- Russian: шифр
- German: Chiffre Geheimschrift
- Russian: шифро́вка
- French: tranche
cipher (ciphers, present participle ciphering; past and past participle ciphered)
- (intransitive, regional, dated) To calculate.
- I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (book), book 2, ch. IX, Abbot Samson
- For the mischief that one blockhead, that every blockhead does, in a world so feracious, teeming with endless results as ours, no ciphering will sum up.
- published 1890, Emily Dickinson
- So I must baffle at the hint/ And cipher at the sign,/ And make much blunder, if at last/I take the clew divine.
- 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred:
- Can you cipher too—along with your reading and writing?
- (intransitive) To write in code or cipher.
- (intransitive, music) Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.
- (obsolete) To decipher.
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004