Cipher vs. Zero

A numeric character.

Any text character.

A combination or interweaving of letters, as the initials of a name.

Example: ‘a painter's cipher’; ‘an engraver's cipher’;

A method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning.

Example: ‘The message was written in a simple cipher. Anyone could figure it out.’;

(cryptography) A cryptographic system using an algorithm that converts letters or sequences of bits into ciphertext.

Example: ‘a public-key cipher’;

Ciphertext; a message concealed via a cipher.

Example: ‘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:

Example: ‘The probability is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 — a number having five ciphers of zeros.’;

(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.

(slang) The path (usually circular) shared cannabis takes through a group, an occasion of cannabis smoking.

Someone or something of no importance.

(dated) Zero.

To calculate.

Example: ‘I never learned much more than how to read and cipher.’;

(intransitive) To write in code or cipher.

Of an organ pipe: to sound independent of the organ.

(obsolete) To decipher.

A character [0] which, standing by itself, expresses nothing, but when placed at the right hand of a whole number, increases its value tenfold.

One who, or that which, has no weight or influence.

Example: ‘Here he was a mere cipher.’;

A character in general, as a figure or letter.

Example: ‘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; as, a painter's cipher, an engraver's cipher, etc. The cut represents the initials N. W.

A private alphabet, system of characters, or other mode of writing, contrived for the safe transmission of secrets; also, a writing in such characters.

Example: ‘His father . . . engaged him when he was very young to write all his letters to England in cipher.’;

Of the nature of a cipher; of no weight or influence.

To use figures in a mathematical process; to do sums in arithmetic.

Example: ‘"T was certain he could write and cipher too.’;

To write in occult characters.

Example: ‘His notes he ciphered with Greek characters.’;

To get by ciphering; as, to cipher out the answer.

To decipher.

To designate by characters.

a message written in a secret code

a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number

a quantity of no importance;

Example: ‘it looked like nothing I had ever seen before’; ‘reduced to nil all the work we had done’; ‘we racked up a pathetic goose egg’; ‘it was all for naught’; ‘I didn't hear zilch about it’;

a person of no influence

a secret method of writing

convert ordinary language into code;

Example: ‘We should encode the message for security reasons’;

make a mathematical calculation or computation

In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment.

The cardinal number occurring before one and that denotes no quantity or amount at all, represented in Arabic numerals as 0.

Example: ‘The conductor waited until the passenger count was zero.’; ‘A cheque for zero dollars and zero cents crashed the computers on division by zero.’;

The numeric symbol that represents the cardinal number zero.

Example: ‘In unary and k-adic notation in general, zero is the empty string.’; ‘Write 0.0 to indicate a floating point number rather than the integer zero.’; ‘The zero sign in American Sign Language is considered rude in some cultures.’;

The digit 0 in the decimal, binary, and all other base numbering systems.

Example: ‘One million has six zeroes.’;

Nothing, or none.

Example: ‘The shipment was lost, so they had zero in stock.’; ‘He knows zero about humour.’; ‘In the end, all of our hard work amounted to zero.’;

The value of a magnitude corresponding to the cardinal number zero.

Example: ‘The electromagnetic field does not drop all of the way to zero before a reversal.’;

The point on a scale at which numbering or measurement originates.

Example: ‘The temperature outside is ten degrees below zero.’;

(mathematics) A value of the independent variables of a function, for which the function is equal to zero.

Example: ‘The zeroes of a polynomial are its roots by the fundamental theorem of algebra.’; ‘The derivative of a continuous, differentiable function that twice crosses the axis must have a zero.’; ‘The nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function may all lie on the critical line.’;

The additive identity element of a monoid or greater algebraic structure, particularly a group or ring.

Example: ‘Since a commutative zero is the inverse of any additive identity, it must be unique when it exists.’; ‘The zero (of a ring or field) has the property that the product of the zero with any element yields the zero.’; ‘The quotient ring over a maximal ideal is a field with a single zero element.’;

(slang) A person of little or no importance.

Example: ‘They rudely treated him like a zero.’;

(military) A Mitsubishi A6M Zero, a long range fighter aircraft operated by the Japanese Navy Air Service from 1940 to 1945.

A setting of calibrated instruments such as a firearm.

(finance) A security which has a zero coupon (paying no periodic interest).

Example: ‘The takeovers were financed by issuing zeroes.’;

(informal) no, not any

Example: ‘She showed zero respect.’;

(meteorology) Of a cloud ceiling, limiting vision to 50 feet (15 meters) or less.

(meteorology) Of horizontal visibility, limited to 165 feet (50.3 meters) or less.

(linguistics) Present at an abstract level, but not realized in the data.

Example: ‘The stem of "kobieta" with the zero ending is "kobiet".’;

(transitive) To set a measuring instrument to zero; to calibrate instrument scale to valid zero.

Example: ‘Zero the fluorometer with the same solvent used in extraction.’;

To change a memory location or range to values of zero; to set a variable in a computer program to zero.

Example: ‘Results were inconsistent because an array wasn’t zeroed during initialization.’;

(transitive) To cause or set some value or amount to be zero.

Example: ‘They tried to zero the budget by the end of the quarter.’;

(transitive) To eliminate; to delete; to overwrite with zeros.

(intransitive) To disappear

A cipher; nothing; naught.

The point from which the graduation of a scale, as of a thermometer, commences.

Fig.: The lowest point; the point of exhaustion; as, his patience had nearly reached zero.

a quantity of no importance;

Example: ‘it looked like nothing I had ever seen before’; ‘reduced to nil all the work we had done’; ‘we racked up a pathetic goose egg’; ‘it was all for naught’; ‘I didn't hear zilch about it’;

a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number

the quantity that registers a reading of zero on a scale

adjust (an instrument or device) to zero value

adjust (as by firing under test conditions) the zero of (a gun);

Example: ‘He zeroed in his rifle at 200 yards’;

indicating the absence of any or all units under consideration;

Example: ‘a zero score’;

indicating an initial point or origin

of or relating to the null set (a set with no members)

having no measurable or otherwise determinable value;

Example: ‘the goal is zero population growth’;