cipher
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
cryptography
engineering
entertainment
lifestyle
mathematics
music
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
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.
Inflected forms:
form: ciphers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: cypher
pos: noun
tags: alternative
UK
form: ciphers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: ciphering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: ciphered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: ciphered
pos: verb
tags: past
form: cypher
pos: verb
tags: alternative
UK
Senses:
gloss: A numeric character.
pos: noun
gloss: Any text character.
pos: noun
examples: 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; […]
gloss: A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.
pos: noun
examples: a painter's cipher
an engraver's cipher
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?"
gloss: A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
pos: noun
examples: The message was written in a simple cipher. Anyone could figure it out.
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.
gloss: A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
pos: noun
examples: a public-key cipher
gloss: Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.
pos: noun
examples: The message is clearly a cipher, but I can't figure it out.
gloss: A grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited by commas or periods
pos: noun
examples: The probability is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 — a number having five ciphers of zeros.
gloss: A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.
pos: noun
gloss: A hip-hop jam session.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
gloss: The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: As the night seemed darker, cops is on a hunt / They interrupt your cipher, and crush your blunt
gloss: Someone or something of no importance.
pos: noun
examples: There he was a mere cypher: here he was lord of the ascendant; the choice spirit, the dominant genius.
gloss: Zero.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: 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.
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.
We saw earlier about this new symbol, the cipher, that can make numbers big.
gloss: To calculate.
pos: verb
tags: dated
intransitive
regional
examples: I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.
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.
So I must baffle at the hint / And cipher at the sign, / And make much blunder, if at last / I take the clew divine.
Can you cipher too—along with your reading and writing?
gloss: To write in code or cipher.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To decipher.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: Yea the illiterate that know not how
To cipher what is writ in learned bookes,
VVill cote my lothſome treſpaſſe in my lookes.
Derived words: 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
cipherable
cipherer
recipher
Translations: