cipher
noun/ˈsaɪfə(r)/
/ˈsaɪfər/
(also cypher)
- [uncountable, countable] a secret way of writing, especially one in which a set of letters or symbols is used to represent others synonym code
- a message in cipher
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- [countable] (formal, disapproving) a person or thing of no importance
- To her employers she was a mere cipher, with no human feelings at all.
- (British English) the first letters of somebody’s name combined in a design and used to mark things
- The glasses were engraved with the Queen’s cipher.
Word Originlate Middle English (in the senses ‘symbol for zero’ and ‘Arabic numeral’): from Old French cifre, based on Arabic ṣifr ‘zero’.
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