plain text

See also: plaintext

English

Alternative forms

• plaintext usually a single compound word in cryptography and computing.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛkst

Noun

plain text (uncountable)

1. (cryptography) Text or any data that is to be encrypted (as opposed to ciphertext).

   Using the sophisticated code was useless since the spy merely stole the plain text from the waste basket.

2. (computing) Data which consists only of human-readable text, as opposed to machine-readable binary data or formatting markup.

Synonyms

• (computing) flat text, cleartext, text file

Antonyms

• (cryptography) ciphertext

Translations

unencrypted text — see cleartext

data that consists only of human-readable text

• Finnish: raakateksti

Adjective

plain text (not comparable)

1. (cryptography, computing) Alternative spelling of plaintext