cipher

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A numeric character.

2. 2

   Any text character.

   • In ſucceeding times this vnderſtanding wiſedome began to be written in Ciphers, and Characters, and letters bearing the forme of beaſtes, birds, and other creatures; […]
3. 3

   A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.

   • a painter's cipher
   • an engraver's cipher
4. ›+ 13 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.

      • The message was written in a simple cipher. Anyone could figure it out.
   2. 5

      A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into…

      A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.

      • a public-key cipher
   3. 6

      Ciphertext

      Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.

      • The message is clearly a cipher, but I can't figure it out.
   4. 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.
   5. 8

      A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key…

      A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.

   6. 9

      A hip-hop jam session.

      • They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
   7. 10

      The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of…

      The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.

      • As the night seemed darker, cops is on a hunt / They interrupt your cipher, and crush your blunt
   8. 11

      Someone or something of no importance.

      • There he was a mere cypher: here he was lord of the ascendant; the choice spirit, the dominant genius.
   9. 12

      Zero.

      • O pardon: ſince a crooked Figure may / Atteſt in little place a Million, / And let vs, Cyphers to this great Accompt, / On your imaginarie Forces worke.
      • Firſt, Find what Decimal of a Pound .625 will Repreſent, which is eaſily done if you prepone a Cypher, and half the Number is the Decimal of a Pound. The Number with a Cypher preponed is .0625, ½ is .03125.
      • We saw earlier about this new symbol, the cipher, that can make numbers big.
   10. 13

       To calculate.

       • I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.
       • 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.
       • So I must baffle at the hint / And cipher at the sign, / And make much blunder, if at last / I take the clew divine.
   11. 14

       To write in code or cipher.

   12. 15

       Of an organ pipe

       Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.

   13. 16

       To decipher.

       • Yea the illiterate that know not how To cipher what is writ in learned bookes, VVill cote my lothſome treſpaſſe in my lookes.

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