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cipher

cip·her

UK/ˈsaɪfə/ US/ˈsaɪfɚ/ uncommon dated obsolete slang
noun (5) verb (2)

noun

1.

a message written in a secret code

Synonyms
2.

a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number

Synonyms
3.

a quantity of no importance

  • “it looked like nothing I had ever seen before”
  • “reduced to nil all the work we had done”
  • “we racked up a pathetic goose egg”
  • “it was all for naught”
  • “I didn”
Synonyms
4.
5.

verb

1.

convert ordinary language into code

  • “We should encode the message for security reasons”
Synonyms
Antonyms
2.

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • Bacon's cipher
  • Baconian cipher
  • Beaufort cipher
  • bifid cipher
  • block cipher
  • Caesar cipher
  • classical cipher
  • Feistel cipher

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

See also

Related verbs

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.