Cryptography. World English Historical Dictionary

Cryptography. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. Cryptography

[a. mod.L. cryptographia, f. Gr. κρυπτός hidden + -γραφία writing: see -GRAPHY.] A secret manner of writing, either by arbitrary characters, by using letters or characters in other than their ordinary sense, or by other methods intelligible only to those possessing the key; also anything written in this way.

1

[1641.  Wilkins, Mercury, ii. (1707), 8. There are also different Ways of Secresy. 1. Cryptologia. 2. Cryptographia. 3. Semæologia.]

2

1658.  Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, iii. The strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starry Book of Heaven.

3

1780.  Von Troil, Iceland, 300. Our gravers of runes even made use of this cryptography in monuments.

4

1855.  Chamb. Jrnl., IV. 134. These decipherers gave the high-sounding names of Cryptography, Cryptology … to their art.

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