# cryptomorphic
## English
### Etymology

Coined by Garrett Birkhoff before 1967, for use in the third edition of his book Lattice Theory.

### Adjective

cryptomorphic (not comparable)
* (mathematics) Two objects, especially systems of axioms or semantics for them, are called cryptomorphic if they are equivalent (possibly in some informal sense) but not obviously equivalent.
** 1994, Michael Henle, A Combinatorial Introduction to Topology, page 269:Find them, and prove that an operation satisfying them provides another cryptomorphic version of topology 8.
* Having a form that obscures or masks the underlying meaning or purpose.
** 1883, Royal Society of Canada, Déliberations Et Mémoires de la Société Royale Du Canada, page 58:Some degree of light may perhaps be thrown on the cryptomorphic condition of bodies in combination, by our knowledge of the typical conditions of natural bodies generally, when uncombined.
** 1988, Sidney Geist, Interpreting Cézanne, page 46:But there are two drawings and a painting that will be shown to be of Cézanne père and that have not been recognized as such — because he is without the hat he wears in the works mentioned above — as well as cryptomorphic portraits that are also hatless, all done, we may be sure, from memory.
** 2004, James Elkins, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?:, page 186:I can imagine, for example, constructing the argument that Poe's Purloined Letter is the locus classicus for all cryptomorphic revelations.
** 2016, R. Burt, Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media, page 83:I call this image cryptomorphic because it hides as it reveals, unlike the skull in Holbein's “Ambassadors”; that is, this smeared film image does not reveal a hidden image behind the smear.
* (genetics) Having a cryptic structure in which the ultimate active product is carried by the precursorial protein rather than the protein actually encoded by the gene.
** 2002, Gurbachan S. Miglani, Advanced Genetics, page 193:Three types of genes, namely, immunoglobulin genes, dimorphic genes and cryptomorphic genes, are classified as complex genes.
** 1987, Lawrence S. Dillon, The Gene: Its Structure, Function, and Evolution, page 487:Hence, among the lower vertebrates, the cistron may be diplomorphic rather than cryptomorphic.
* (earth science) Found or occurring below the soil layer.
** 1930, Economic Geology and the Bulletin of the Society of Economic Geologists: Volume 46, page 125:Either the cryptomorphic silica replaced the microcrystalline dolomite, followed by mineralization or the reverse, in the order of silicification, is possible.
** 2004, Andrews Mangement Unit/Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area: Environmental Impact Statement, page 3-8:Cryptomorphic biological soil crusts are the most difficult to observe and occur to a lesser known extent within the Planning Area .
** 2008, D. V. Lopatin, “Cryptomorphic Structures of the Lithosphere: Their Reflection on Space Images and the Earth's Surface”, in Doklady Earth Sciences, volume 421, page 983:The vertical flow of the substance may scatter and create dissipative cryptomorphic structures on the surface, which are poorly expressed in the relief.
** 2011, D. Zachar, Soil Erosion, page 47:The first group includes surface phenomena (i.e. exomorphic, or superficial phenomena), and the second group comprises underground phenomena (i.e. cryptomorphic, or subficial phenomena).
* (crystallography) Composed of minerals that are not expressed in their crystalline form.
** 1925, The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society - Volume 20, page 309:Both have 'cryptomorphic' types which are similar in composition but in which no felspar has crystallized.

#### Related terms

* cryptomorphism