# cipher
## English
### Alternative forms

* cypher (less common)

### Etymology

14th century. From Middle English cifre, from Old French cyfre, cyffre (French chiffre), ultimately from Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr, “zero, empty”), from صَفَرَ (ṣafara, “to be empty”). Doublet of chiffre and zero. Sense 8 (a fault in an organ valve) may be a different word.

### Pronunciation

* Hyphenation: ci‧pher
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈsaɪfə/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (US, Canada) enPR: ˈsī-fər, IPA: /ˈsaɪfɚ/
** Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪfə(ɹ)

### Noun

cipher (plural ciphers)
* A numeric character.
    Synonyms: number, numeral
* Any text character.
** 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], “Of diuers memorable things betweene the fall of Adam, and the floud of Noah”, in The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, 1st book, §. VI (Of the Patriarchs deliuering their knowledge by Tradition: and that Enoch writ before the floud), pages 78–79:In ſucceeding times this vnderſtanding wiſedome began to be written in Ciphers, and Characters, and letters bearing the forme of beaſtes, birds, and other creatures; […]
* A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.
    Synonyms: device, monogram
    a painter's cipher
    an engraver's cipher
** 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 290:Just then, an attendant to whom the Queen had whispered returned; and taking a small case from her hand, Anne produced a bracelet somewhat similar to the very one with which Francesca had parted, excepting that it had her cipher, surrounded by a wreath of fleurs-de-lis. "Louis, will you offer this to Mademoiselle Carrara?"
* A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
    Synonym: code
    The message was written in a simple cipher. Anyone could figure it out.
** a. 1716 (date written), [Gilbert] Burnet, “Book II. Of the First Twelve Years of the Reign of King Charles II. from the Year 1660 to the Year 1673.”, in [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], editor, Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volume I, London: […] Thomas Ward […], published 1724, →OCLC, page 257:He was very early engaged in great ſecrets: For his fatherr, apprehending of what fatal conſequence it would have been to the King’s affairs if his correſpondence had been diſcovered by unfaithful Secretaries, engaged him when very young to write all his letters to England in cypher; ſo that he was generally half the day writing in cypher, or decyphering, and was ſo diſcrect, as well as faithful, that nothing was ever diſcovered by him.
* (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
    a public-key cipher
* 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.
* (music, slang) A hip-hop jam session.
** 2011, “The World Is Listening”, in The Journey Aflame, performed by Akua Naru:They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
* (slang) The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
    Synonym: rotation
** 1993, “Midnight”, in Midnight Marauders, performed by A Tribe Called Quest:As the night seemed darker, cops is on a hunt / They interrupt your cipher, and crush your blunt
* Someone or something of no importance.
    Synonyms: nobody, nonentity, nothing; see also Thesaurus:nonentity
** 1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Club of Queer Fellows”, in Tales of a Traveller, part 2 (Buckthorne and His Friends), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC, page 22:There he was a mere cypher: here he was lord of the ascendant; the choice spirit, the dominant genius.
* (dated) Zero.
** 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, prologue], page 69, columns 1–2:O pardon: ſince a crooked Figure may / Atteſt in little place a Million, / And let vs, Cyphers to this great Accompt, / On your imaginarie Forces worke.
** 1716, John Hill, Arithmetick Both in the Theory and Practice, Made Plain and Easie, in All the Common and Useful Rules, Both in Whole Numbers, and Fractions, Vulgar and Decimal. […], 2nd edition, London: […] D. Midwinter, […], page 185:Firſt, Find what Decimal of a Pound .625 will Repreſent, which is eaſily done if you prepone a Cypher, and half the Number is the Decimal of a Pound. The Number with a Cypher preponed is .0625, ½ is .03125.
** 2024, Numberphile, by Brady Haran with Rob Eastaway, The Big X - Numberphile‎:We saw earlier about this new symbol, the cipher, that can make numbers big.
* Eggcorn of siphon.

#### Derived terms

* Baconian cipher
* Bacon's cipher
* Beaufort cipher
* bifid cipher
* block cipher
* Caesar cipher
* cipherdom
* cipherhood
* cipherlike
* ciphertext
* ciphony
* classical cipher
* cypherpunk
* decipher
* encipher
* Feistel cipher
* Gronsfeld cipher
* Julius Caesar cipher
* Nihilist cipher
* pigpen cipher
* Playfair cipher
* rail fence cipher
* stream cipher
* subcipher
* substitution cipher
* telecipher
* transposition cipher
* trifid cipher
* uncipher
* Vigenère cipher

#### Translations
### Verb

cipher (third-person singular simple present ciphers, present participle ciphering, simple past and past participle ciphered)
* (intransitive, regional, dated) To calculate.
    I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.
** 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Abbot Samson”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk), page 88: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.
** a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “[Book IV.—Time and Eternity] (please specify the chapter or poem)”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, First Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1890, →OCLC, page 115: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 E[stelle] Butler, Kindred:Can you cipher too—along with your reading and writing?Set in Maryland in the early 1800s.
* (intransitive) To write in code or cipher.
* (intransitive, music) Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.
* (obsolete) To decipher.
** 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC, signature [F4], recto:Yea the illiterate that know not how To cipher what is writ in learned bookes, VVill cote my lothſome treſpaſſe in my lookes.

#### Derived terms

* cipherable
* cipherer
* recipher

### References

* ↑ Cipher. (n.d.). In the New Oxford American Dictionary.
* ↑ “Cipher”, in Rap Dictionary‎, 2005, archived from the original on 2005-04-03.

### Anagrams

* Perich, chipre, ceriph, rechip, CPHERI