Cipher vs Nil - What's the difference?
cipher | nil | Synonyms |
A numeric character.
Any text character.
* Sir Walter Raleigh
A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name; a device; a monogram.
A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.
* Bishop Burnet
(cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters]] or sequences of [[bit, bits into ciphertext.
Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher .
A grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited by commas or periods:
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
(obsolete) Zero.
(regional, dated) To calculate.
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 2, ch. IX, ''Abbot Samson
Nothing; zero.
* 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.19:
No, not any.
* 1982 , Gavin Lyall, Conduct of Major Maxim , Hodder & Stoughton Ltd:
As nouns the difference between cipher and nil
is that cipher is a numeric character while nil is nothing; zero.As a verb cipher
is to calculate.As a determiner nil is
no, not any.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)- This wisdom began to be written in ciphers and characters and letters bearing the forms of creatures.
- a painter's cipher''', an engraver's '''cipher , etc.
- The message was written in a simple cipher . Anyone could figure it out.
- His father engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher .
- The message is clearly a cipher , but I can't figure it out.
- The probability is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 — a number having five ciphers of zeros.
- Here he was a mere cipher .
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, zeroDerived terms
* ciphertext * cypherpunk * cypherparty * decipher * encipherCitations
Verb
(en verb)- I never learned much more than how to read and cipher .
- 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.
nil
English
Noun
(en noun)- As to Aristotle's influence on him, we are left free to conjecture whatever seems to us most plausible. For my part, I should suppose it nil .
Determiner
(en determiner)- But after two or three hours and nil results, you have to accept that the trail is cold and you can't justify that level of manpower.