Definition of "cipher"

cipher

/ˈsaɪfə/

noun
plural ciphers
1. A numeric character.
2. Any text character.
  Quotations
  This understanding wisdom began to be written in ciphers and characters and letters bearing the forms of creatures.
  1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], (please specify |book=1 to 5)
3. A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.
  Quotations
  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?"
  1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 290
4. A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
  Quotations
  His father […] engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher.
  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 […]
5. (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
6. Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.
7. A grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited by commas or periods:
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.
  Quotations
  They say no girls in the cipher, so I rock solo
  2011, “The World Is Listening”, in The Journey Aflame, performed by Akua Naru
10. (slang) The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
  Quotations
  As the night seemed darker, cops is on a hunt / They interrupt your cipher, and crush your blunt
  1993, “Midnight”, performed by A Tribe Called Quest
11. Someone or something of no importance.
  Quotations
  There he was a mere cipher.
  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 […]
12. (dated) Zero.
13. Eggcorn of siphon.
verb
third-person singular simple present ciphers, present participle ciphering, simple past and past participle ciphered
1. (intransitive, regional, dated) To calculate.
  Quotations
  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.
  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, book II (The Ancient Monk)
  So I must baffle at the hint / And cipher at the sign, / And make much blunder, if at last / I take the clew divine.
  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, page 115
  Can you cipher too—along with your reading and writing?
  1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred
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.
  Quotations
  the illiterate that know not howTo cipher what is writ in learned bookes,
  1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […]

Definition of "cipher"

cipher

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