Other forms: ciphers
A cipher is a system for writing in code. Break the cipher, a simple cipher, encode it with a cipher.
A cipher works on letters and a code works on whole words or ideas, which is a real distinction that everyday speech ignores. The word came from the Arabic for zero, and it also means a person of no importance — a nobody, a nought.
1nouncipherA system for writing in code.
“The spies sent their messages in a cipher that only the general could read.”
cipher is a code.
Old French cyfre comes from Arabic sifr, zero or empty. The word meant zero first, then a secret writing, then a nonentity.
Arabic
صِفْر — zero, empty
Old French
cyfre
Middle English
cifre
English, today
cipher
Built from
14th century. From Middle English cifre, from Old French cyfre, cyffre (French chiffre), ultimately from Arabic صِفْر (“zero, empty”), from صَفَرَ (“to be empty”). a doublet of chiffre and zero. Sense 8 (a fault in an organ valve) may be a different word.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA