cipher
English
editAlternative forms
edit- cypher (less common)
Etymology
edit14th 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 zero. Sense 8 (a fault in an organ valve) may be a different word.[1]
Pronunciation
edit- Hyphenation: ci‧pher
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈsaɪfə/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (US, Canada) enPR: ˈsī-fər, IPA(key): /ˈsaɪfɚ/
- Rhymes: -aɪfə(ɹ)
Noun
editcipher (plural ciphers)
- A numeric character.
- Any text character.
- 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):
- This understanding 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.
- 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, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], published 1724, →OCLC:
- 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.
- 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.[2]
- 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”, 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
- a. 1716 (date written), [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], published 1724, →OCLC:
- There he was a mere cipher.
- (dated) Zero.
- 1623, William Shakespeare, “Prologue”, in The Life of Henry the FiftWikisource, page 1:
- O pardon: since a crooked Figure may // Attest in little place a Million, // And let vs, Cyphers to this great Accompt,[3]
- Eggcorn of siphon.
Derived terms
edit- 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
Related terms
editTranslations
editnumeric character
|
combination or interweaving of letters
method for concealing the meaning of text
|
cryptographic system
|
concealed message
|
grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited
music: fault in an organ valve
obsolete: zero — see zero
Verb
editcipher (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, “ch. IX, 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):
- 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 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.
- 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
- the illiterate that know not how
To cipher what is writ in learned bookes,
Derived terms
editReferences
edit- ^ Cipher. (n.d.). In the New Oxford American Dictionary.
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20060213154654/http://rapdict.org/Cipher Rap Dictionary. Retrieved 30 November 2005.
- ^ Numberphile, by Brady Haran with Rob Eastaway (2024) The Big X - Numberphile[1]
Anagrams
editCategories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Arabic
- English doublets
- English terms derived from the Arabic root ص ف ر
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/aɪfə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/aɪfə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Cryptography
- en:Music
- English slang
- English dated terms
- English eggcorns
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- Regional English
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Zero