different between cipher vs nil

English

Alternative forms

• (less common) cypher

Etymology

14th century. From Middle English cifre, from Old French cyfre, cyffre (French chiffre), ultimately from Arabic ?????? (?ifr, “zero, empty”), from ??????? (?afara, “to be empty”). Doublet of zero. Sense 9 may be a different word.

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: ci?pher
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?sa?f?/
• (US, Canada) enPR: ?s?-f?r, IPA^(key): /?sa?f?/
• Rhymes: -a?f?(r)

Noun

cipher (plural ciphers)

1. A numeric character.
2. Any text character.

   • This understanding wisdom began to be written in ciphers and characters and letters bearing the forms of creatures.

3. 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.

4. 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.

   • His father […] engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher.

5. (cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.
6. Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.

   The message is clearly a cipher, but I can't figure it out.

7. 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.

8. (music) A fault in an organ valve which causes a pipe to sound continuously without the key having been pressed.
9. A hip-hop jam session.
10. The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.
11. Someone or something of no importance; a nonentity

    • There he was a mere cipher.

12. (dated) Zero.

Synonyms

• (numeric character): number, numeral
• (method for concealing the meaning of text): code
• (cryptographic system using an algorithm):
• (ciphertext):
• (a grouping of three digits in a number, especially when delimited):
• (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, see also Thesaurus:nonentity; (thing) nonentity, nothing, nullity
• (obsolete: zero): naught/nought, nothing, oh, zero

Derived terms

Related terms

• zero

Translations

Verb

cipher (third-person singular simple present ciphers, present participle ciphering, simple past and past participle ciphered)

1. (intransitive, regional, dated) To calculate.

   I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, 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.

   • 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred:

     Can you cipher too—along with your reading and writing?

2. (intransitive) To write in code or cipher.
3. (intransitive, music) Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.
4. (obsolete) To decipher.

References

Anagrams

• ceriph, chipre, rechip

English

Etymology

From Latin n?l, a contraction of nihil, nihilum (“nothing”). See nihilism.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Noun

nil (usually uncountable, plural nils)

1. Nothing; zero.
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.19:

     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.

Translations

Determiner

nil

1. No, not any.
   • 1982, Gavin Lyall, Conduct of Major Maxim, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd:

     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.

Related terms

• nihilism

See also

• null
• nil desperandum

Anagrams

• -lin, Lin, Lin., lin, lin.

Golin

Alternative forms

• nl, n?

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [n???], [n?], [??n??l]

Noun

nil

1. liquid; water

Derived terms

References

• Gordon Bunn, Golin Grammar (1974)

Interlingua

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nil/

Pronoun

nil (indefinite)

1. nothing

Latin

Etymology

Clipping of nihil, in turn from nihilum, from ne- (“not”) + hilum (“a hilum; a trifle, a bagatelle”), or unknown origin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ni?l/, [ni???]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /nil/, [nil]

Noun

n?l n (indeclinable)

1. (chiefly poetic) nothing

   Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma. Quam ergo mercedem accipies? Nil nisi te.

   You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward therefore will you receive? Nothing unless it is you.

References

• nil in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• nil in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Tok Pisin

Etymology

English needle.

Noun

nil

1. needle
2. thorn