cipher

Từ điển Oxford Advanced Learner 8th

ci·pher [cipher ciphers ciphered ciphering] (also cy·pher)BrE [ˈsaɪfə(r)] NAmE [ˈsaɪfər] noun
1. uncountable, countable a secret way of writing, especially one in which a set of letters or symbols is used to represent others
Syn: ↑code
•a message in cipher
see also ↑decipher
2. countable (formal, disapproving)a person or thing of no importance
•To her employers she was a mere cipher, with no human feelings at all.
3. (BrE)the first letters of sb's name combined in a design and used to mark things
•The glasses were engraved with the Queen's cipher.
See also: ↑cypher

Word Origin:
late Middle English (in the senses ‘symbol for zero’ and ‘Arabic numeral’): from Old French cifre, based on Arabic ṣifr ‘zero’.

• Từ đồng nghĩa / Synonyms:
  cypher, cryptograph, secret code, nobody, nonentity, zero, 0, nought, calculate, compute, work out, reckon, figure, code, encipher, encrypt, inscribe, write in code