Forms: 4 sipher, -re, 6 cyfer, -re, cifer, -ra, -re, ciphre, -ra, sypher, -re, ziphre, (scypher), 6–7 cyphar, 7 cyphre, ciphar, zifer, 6– cypher, cipher. [a. OF. cyfre, cyffre (mod.F. chiffre) = Sp. Pg. It. cifra, med.L. cifra, cifera, ciphra, f. Arab. çifr the arithmetical symbol ‘zero’ or ‘nought’ (written in Indian and Arabic numeration ٜ), a subst. use of the adj. çifr ‘empty, void,’ f. çafara to be empty. The Arabic was simply a translation of the Sanscrit name śūnya, literally ‘empty.’]
1. An arithmetical symbol or character (0) of no value by itself, but which increases or decreases the value of other figures according to its position. When placed after any figure or series of figures in a whole number it increases the value of that figure or series tenfold, and when placed before a figure in decimal fractions, it decreases its value in the same proportion.
1399. Langl., Rich. Redeles, IV. 53. Than satte summe, as siphre doth in awgrym, That noteth a place, and no thing availith.
c. 1400. Test. Love, II. (1560), 286 b/1. Although a sipher in augrim have no might in signification of it selve, yet he yeveth power in signification to other.
1547. J. Harrison, Exhort. Scottes, 229. Our presidentes … doo serue but as Cyphers in Algorisme, to fill the place.
a. 1591. H. Smith, Serm. (1622), 310. You are … like cyphers, which supply a place, but signifie nothing.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 6. Like a Cypher (Yet standing in rich place) I multiply With one we thanke you, many thousands moe, That goe before it.
1660. Milton, Free Commw., 429. Only like a great Cypher set to no purpose before a long row of other significant Figures.
1718. J. Chamberlayne, Relig. Philos. (1730), I. xvi. § 22. With 39 Noughts or Cyphers following.
1801–15. Mar. Edgeworth, Frank (ed. 2), III. 143. It was said … that all Cambridge scholars call the cipher aught and all Oxford scholars call it nought.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 4. The first nine are called Significant Figures, as distinguished from the cipher, which is of itself quite insignificant.
† b. The zero-point, or zero, of a thermometer.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 475. The range of the quicksilver … is between the 24th degree below, and the 105th degree above cypher.
2. fig. A person who fills a place, but is of no importance or worth, a nonentity, a ‘mere nothing.’
1579. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 46. If one be hard in conceiuing they pronounce him a dowlte … if without speach, a Cipher.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, II. v. (1840), 54. At this day the Roman emperor is a very cipher, without power or profit in Rome.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 252/1. The tribunes’ office, which has made ciphers of the consuls.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, I. 259. The Raja was a cypher: the Dewan usurped the whole power.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, I. iii. (1876), 24. To the lady and lord rather—his lordship being little more than a cypher in the house.
b. of things.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., II. ii. 39. Mine were the verie Cipher of a Function To fine the faults … And let goe by the Actor.
1844. Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., viii. (1862), 105. The impotent estate being reduced to a cipher, is as if it had no existence.
3. In an extended sense, applied to all the Arabian numerals; a numeral figure; a number.
1530. Palsgr., 684/2. I reken, I counte by cyfers of agrym.
1632. Recorde, etc. Gr. Artes, 11. Of those ten [figures], one doth signifie nothing … and is priuately called a Cypher, though all the other sometime be likewise named.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Cipher, a figure or number.
1756. J. Warton, Ess. Pope (1782), I. § 31. 185. It was Gerbert, who … is said to have introduced into France, the Arabian and Indian cypher.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), VII. XVIII. i. 92. I remember to have seen ‘150 millions’ loosely given as the exaggerated cipher.
1875. Renouf’s Egypt. Gram., 13. Numbers are almost always expressed by means of ciphers.
† 4. gen. A symbolic character, a hieroglyph.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), A iv. They wolde have deuysed a strange syphre or fourme of letters, wherin they wold have writen their science.
1555. Fardle Facions, I. iv. 40. Yeat ware not their Letters facioned to ioyne together in sillables like ours, but Ziphres, and shapes of men and of beastes.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, I. I. vi § vi. 67 (J.). In succeeding times this understanding and wisdome began to be written in Ciphers and Characters, and Letters bearing the forme of beasts, birds, and other creatures.
† b. An astrological sign or figure. Obs.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. ii. 45. May learned be by cyphers, or by Magicke might.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. III. 202/988. He Circles draws, and Squares With Cyphers, Astrall Characters.
fig. 1841–4. Emerson, Ess. Circles, Wks. (Bohn), I. 125. The eye … is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.
5. A secret or disguised manner of writing, whether by characters arbitrarily invented (app. the earlier method), or by an arbitrary use of letters or characters in other than their ordinary sense, by making single words stand for sentences or phrases, or by other conventional methods intelligible only to those possessing the key; a cryptograph. Also anything written in cipher, and the key to such a system.
1528. Gardiner, in Pocock, Rec. Ref., I. No. 48. 92. We think not convenient to write them, but only in cipher.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1372/1. Letters betweene them were alwaies written in cipher.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xvi. § 6. 61. The kindes of CYPHARS … are many, according to the Nature or Rule of the infoulding, WHEELE-CYPHARS, KAY-CYPHARS, DOVBLES, &c.
1652. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 289. I had also addresses and cyphers, to correspond with his Majesty and Ministers abroad.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. i. 15. We admit the Key of a Cypher to be a true one, when it explains the Cypher completely.
1812. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., IX. 235. We have deciphered the letter you sent and it goes back to you with the key of the cipher.
1839–57. Alison, Hist. Europe, VIII. lii. § 5. 293. Intercepting some of the correspondence in cipher.
1885. Gordon, in Standard, 24 Feb., 5/7. Cypher letter … which I cannot decypher, for Colonel Stewart took the cypher with him.
† b. Ciphers: Shorthand; = CHARACTERS 3 b.
1541. Elyot, Image Gou., 28. Secretaries or clerkes … in briefe notes or syphers made for that purpose, wrate euery woorde that by those counsaillours was spoken.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. 82 (D.). His Speeches were much heeded, and taken by divers in Ciphers.
c. fig.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Surv. Leviath. (1676), 12. To open the cipher of other mens thoughts.
1854. B. Taylor, Poems Orient, L’Envoi. I found among the children of the Sun The cipher of my nature.
6. An intertexture of letters, esp. the initials of a name, engraved or stamped on plate, linen, etc.; a literal device, monogram; now esp. used of Turkish or Arabic names so expressed.
1631. Massinger, Beleeve as You List, V. ii. Pull out the stone, and under it you shall finde My name, and cipher I then usde, ingraven.
a. 1672. Wood, Life (1848), 87, note. Above [the portrait] is his cypher.
1764. Harmer, Observ., XIX. x. 425. The Emir’s flourish or cypher at the bottom, signifying, ‘The poor, the abject Mehemet, son of Turabeye.’
1824. J. Johnson, Typogr., I. 348. At the end is Caxton’s cypher on a white ground.
Mod. Turkish coins bearing no device except the Sultan’s cipher.
7. The continuous sounding of any note upon an organ, owing to the imperfect closing of the pallet or valve without any pressure upon the corresponding key.
1779. Burney, Infant Music., in Phil. Trans., LXIX. 198. He weakened the springs of two keys at once, which, by preventing the valves of the wind-chest from closing, occasioned a double cipher.
1884. W. S. Rockstro, Mendelssohn, xii. 82. During the course of the Fantasia … a long treble A began to sound on the swell…. We well remember whispering to Mr. Vincent Novello … ‘It must be a cypher.’
8. attrib. and in Comb., as cipher bishop (sense 2); cipher-letter, -telegram, -writing, etc. (sense 5); cipher-key, the key to writings in cipher; † cipher-tunnel, a false or mock chimney.
1649. Milton, Eikon., Wks. (1738), I. 377. That foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve *Cypher Bishops.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 64. A red And *cipher face of rounded foolishness.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 20. Laughter: the *cipher key, wherewith we decipher the whole man!
1880. Brit. Post. Guide, 242. *Cypher telegrams are those containing series or groups of figures or letters having a secret meaning; or words not to be found in a standard dictionary.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., V. iii. § 46. The device of *Cypher Tunnels or mock-Chimneys meerly for uniformity of building.
