different between cryptogam vs cryptogram

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ??????? (kruptós, “hidden”) + ????? (gamé?, “to marry”).

Noun

cryptogam (plural cryptogams)

1. Any plant that reproduces using spores (rather than seeds), formerly placed in the taxonomic group Cryptogamae, which included ferns, mosses, algae, fungi, lichens and liverworts.
   • 1956, George A. Llano, Botanical Research Essential to a Knowledge of Antarctica, A. P. Crary, L. M. Gould, E. O. Hulburt, Hugh Obishaw, Waldo E. Smith (editors), Antarctica in the International Geophysical Year, Geophysical Monograph Number 1, American Geophysical Union, page 124,

     In the absence of phanerogams, the cryptogams — principally the algae, mosses, and lichens — are the dominant forms of plant life.

   • 1999, George O. Poinar, Roberta Poinar, The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World, page 36,

     Not only were bromeliads and orchids covering the exposed bark of the trees, the dominant diminutive cover (known as epiphylls) was composed of cryptogams, small plants that lack true flowers and reproduce with spores.

   • 2011, Göran Gellerstedt, Gunnar Henriksson, 9: Lignins: Major Sources, Structure and Properties, Mohamed Naceur Belgacem, Alessandro Gandini (editors), Monomers, Polymers and Composites from Renewable Resources, page 201,

     The first vascular plants to develop were vascular cryptogams reproduced using spores and, today, such plants can still be found as the herb families of club mosses, ferns, horsetails and in fern trees.

Synonyms

• (plant that reproduces using spores): aëtheogam

Coordinate terms

• phanerogam

Derived terms

• anticryptogamic
• cryptogamic
• cryptogamous
• cryptogamy

Translations

See also

• bryophyte
• Cryptogamae
• pteridophyte
• sporangium
• thallophyte

Further reading

• cryptogam on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• cryptogramme (very rare)

Etymology

crypto- +? -gram

Noun

cryptogram (plural cryptograms)

1. Encrypted text.
   • 1981, Norma Gleason, Cryptograms and Spygrams, Courier Corporation (?ISBN), page 7:

     It's a big help in solving cryptograms if you know how a cryptogram is constructed. The constructor normally uses two alphabets, one for plaintext, one for the substitute cipher letters.

   • 2002, Fred Piper, Sean Murphy, Cryptography: A Very Short Introduction, OUP Oxford (?ISBN), page 35:

     To anyone who does not know the key, the five characters of the cryptogram are different but the genuine receiver is in no danger of confusion.

   • 2019, Ioanna Iordanou, Venice's Secret Service: Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance, Oxford University Press (?ISBN), page 139:

     Indeed, Willaert was unable to read Charles's musical notation because it was actually a musical cryptogram passing for a madrigal, making absolutely no sense to a mere musician's naked eye, despite his towering talent.

2. (games) A type of word puzzle in which text encoded by a simple cipher is to be decoded.
   • 2007, Charles Seife, Decoding the Universe, Penguin (?ISBN)

     You already know this if you are an amateur codebreaker. On the comics pages of many newspapers, you will find a little puzzle known as a cryptogram. It's usually a famous quotation that has been encrypted in a very straightforward way […]

Translations

Further reading

• cryptogram on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “cryptogram”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• “cryptogram”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).

Dutch

Etymology

From crypto- +? -gram.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kr?p.to???r?m/
• Hyphenation: cryp?to?gram
• Rhymes: -?m

Noun

cryptogram n (plural cryptogrammen, diminutive cryptogrammetje n)

1. cryptic crossword (crossword puzzle with cryptic definitions)

Related terms

• cryptograaf
• cryptografie
• cryptografisch