cipher
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- cypher (less common)
Etymology[edit]
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 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/
Audio (US) (file)
- Rhymes: -aɪfə(ɹ)
Noun[edit]
cipher (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.
- 1724, [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], →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
- 1724, [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], →OCLC:
- There he was a mere cipher.
- (dated) Zero.
- Eggcorn of siphon.
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
numeric 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[edit]
cipher (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,
References[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.
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- 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