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Cipher vs Encoding - What's the difference?

cipher | encoding |

As nouns the difference between cipher and encoding

is that cipher is a numeric character while encoding is the way in which symbols are mapped onto bytes, e.g. in the rendering of a particular font, or in the mapping from keyboard input into visual text.

As verbs the difference between cipher and encoding

is that cipher is to calculate while encoding is present participle of lang=en.

cipher

English

Alternative forms

* cypher, less common than cipher but still in use in English. see The Ultra Secret by 's series of Cyphers (Nr 1, Nr 2, Nr 3, ...) before and into WWII.

Noun

(en noun)
  • A numeric character.
  • Any text character.
  • * Sir Walter Raleigh
  • This wisdom began to be written in ciphers and characters and letters bearing the forms of creatures.
  • A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name; a device; a monogram.
  • a painter's cipher''', an engraver's '''cipher , etc.
  • A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
  • The message was written in a simple cipher . Anyone could figure it out.
  • * Bishop Burnet
  • His father engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher .
  • (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters]] or sequences of [[bit, bits into ciphertext.
  • Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher .
  • The message is clearly a cipher , but I can't figure it out.
  • A grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited by commas or periods:
  • The probability is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 — a number having five ciphers of zeros.
  • A design of interlacing initials: a decorative design consisting of a set of interlaced initials.
  • (music) A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.
  • A hip-hop jam session [http://www.rapdict.org/Cipher]
  • The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
  • Someone or something of no importance.
  • * Washington Irving
  • Here he was a mere cipher .
  • (obsolete) Zero.
  • Synonyms

    * (numeric character) number, numeral * (method for concealing the meaning of text) code * (cryptographic system using an algorithm) * (ciphertext) * * (design of interlacing initials) monogram * (fault in an organ valve causing a pipe to sound continuously) * (hip-hop jam session) * (path that shared cannabis takes through a group) * (someone or something of no importance) (person): nobody, nonentity; (thing) nonentity, nothing, nullity * naught/nought, nothing, oh, zero

    Derived terms

    * ciphertext * cypherpunk * cypherparty * decipher * encipher

    Citations

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (regional, dated) To calculate.
  • I never learned much more than how to read and cipher .
  • * 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 2, ch. IX, ''Abbot Samson
  • For the mischief that one blockhead, that every blockhead does, in a world so feracious, teeming with endless results as ours, no ciphering will sum up.

    encoding

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) The way in which symbols are mapped onto bytes, e.g. in the rendering of a particular font, or in the mapping from keyboard input into visual text.
  • A conversion of plain text into a code or cypher form (for decoding by the recipient).
  • Derived terms

    * font encoding * input encoding

    See also

    * Unicode * *

    Verb

    (head)
  • * {{quote-journal , year=1988 , date=1 March 1988 , author= , title=Isolation and analysis of the gene encoding peripheral myelin protein zero , journal=Neuron citation
  • , passage=We have isolated the gene encoding the Schwann cell glycoprotein P0, the major structural protein of the peripheral myelin sheath.}}