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* {{a|US|Canada}} {{enPR|ˈsī-fər}}, {{IPA|en|/ˈsaɪfɚ/}}
* {{a|US|Canada}} {{enPR|ˈsī-fər}}, {{IPA|en|/ˈsaɪfɚ/}}
** {{audio|en|en-us-cipher.ogg|Audio (US)}}
** {{audio|en|en-us-cipher.ogg|Audio (US)}}
* {{rhymes|en|aɪfə(r)}}
* {{rhymes|en|aɪfə(ɹ)}}


===Noun===
===Noun===

Revision as of 11:08, 18 September 2021

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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 zero. Sense 9 may be a different word.[1]

Pronunciation

  • Hyphenation: ci‧pher
  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "RP" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈsaɪfə/
    • Audio (UK):(file)
  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "US" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. enPR: ˈsī-fər, IPA(key): /ˈsaɪfɚ/
  • Rhymes: -aɪfə(ɹ)

Noun

cipher (plural ciphers)

  1. A numeric character.
    Synonyms: number, numeral
  2. 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.
  3. A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.
    Synonyms: device, monogram
    a painter's cipher
    an engraver's cipher
  4. 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.
  5. (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
    a public-key cipher
  6. Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.
    The message is clearly a cipher, but I can't figure it out.
  7. 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.
  8. (music) A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.
  9. (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
  10. (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
  11. 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.
  12. (dated) Zero.

Derived terms

Derived terms

Template:der-mid

Translations

any text character
method for concealing the meaning of text
obsolete: zero — see zero

Verb

cipher (third-person singular simple present ciphers, present participle ciphering, simple past and past participle ciphered)

  1. (intransitive, regional, dated) To calculate.
    I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.
    • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. IX, Abbot Samson
      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?
  2. (intransitive) To write in code or cipher.
  3. (intransitive, music) Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.
  4. (obsolete) To decipher.

References

  1. ^ Cipher. (n.d.). In the New Oxford American Dictionary.
  2. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20060213154654/http://rapdict.org/Cipher Rap Dictionary. Retrieved 30 November 2005.

Anagrams

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