Other forms: decrypted, decrypts, decrypting
To decrypt is to turn scrambled data back into something readable. Decrypt the file, the message could not be decrypted, end-to-end encrypted so only the recipient can decrypt it.
The opposite is encrypt, and the pair is the whole of the word's life. Decrypt is used both for legitimate unscrambling with the right key and for breaking a code without one, though crack or break is commoner for the second. The noun is decryption. Note the older word decipher, which means the same and is used more of handwriting and ancient scripts than of computers.
1verbdecryptTo turn encrypted data back into readable form.
“Only the recipient can decrypt it.”
synonyms: decipher, decode
decrypt is a way of unscrambling.
Greek kryptos meant hidden — the same root as crypt, a hidden chamber, and cryptic, meaning obscure. Encryption hides a message and decryption uncovers it, and the burial vault under a church is named by the same word.
Ancient Greek
κρυπτός
English, today
decrypt
From de- + -crypt, from Ancient Greek κρυπτός literally “hidden, concealed, private, secret”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA