cryptography

noun cryp·tog·ra·phy \ krip-ˈtä-grə-fē \

|Updated on: 12 Aug 2018

Examples: cryptography in a Sentence

Definition of cryptography

1 : secret writing

2 : the enciphering and deciphering of messages in secret code or cipher; also : the computerized encoding and decoding of information

3 : cryptanalysis

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Examples of cryptography in a Sentence

Companies often use cryptography to protect private information.

Recent Examples of cryptography from the Web

The response by the developers of cryptography software is to implement their algorithms in such a way as to defend against these data leaks.

— peter bright, Ars Technica, "Hyperthreading under scrutiny with new TLBleed crypto key leak," 25 June 2018
Without having the cryptography keys of the people talking, all the system administrators would see was meaningless gobbledegook.

— quinn norton, The Atlantic, "Email Is Dangerous," 21 May 2018
Inspired by the January disclosure of the bugs, security researchers are digging into chip attacks and uncovering even more flaws, said Paul Kocher, an independent cryptography expert who with others discovered Spectre.

— robert mcmillan, WSJ, "New Intel Chip Flaws Found—And They Likely Won’t Be the Last," 22 May 2018
The services could benefit everyday applications such as cryptography and lotteries—and also research.

— sophia chen, Science | AAAS, "Why are countries creating public random number generators?," 28 June 2018
There are several reasons for that, said Riana Pfefferkorn, cryptography fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

— andy marso and kelsey ryan, kansascity, "Does your hospital still use pagers? Your personal information may be at risk," 22 June 2018
In the summer of 2014, a few months after their honeymoon, Arthur wrote a pair of white papers, under the pseudonym LM Goodman, and posted them on the cryptography listserv famous for Bitcoin’s quiet debut.

— gideon lewis-kraus, WIRED, "The Blockchain: A Love Story—And a Horror Story," 18 June 2018
At the time email was being invented, so were new forms of cryptography.

— quinn norton, The Atlantic, "Email Is Dangerous," 21 May 2018
Bill Barhydt, who worked on cryptography for the CIA, responded to Roubini.

— bloomberg, Fortune, "A Verbal Cryptobrawl Broke Out at the Milken Institute Global Conference," 2 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cryptography.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

For a word having to do with secrets, "cryptography" has a surprisingly transparent etymology. The word traces back to the Greek roots kryptos, meaning "hidden," and graphein, meaning "to write." "Kryptos" - which in turn traces to the Greek verb kryptein, meaning "to hide" - is a root shared by several English words, including "crypt," "cryptic," and "encrypt." "Krypton," the name of a colorless gaseous element used especially in some fluorescent lamps and photography flashes, also comes from "kryptos." The name was chosen because the gas is rare and hard to find.

Origin and Etymology of cryptography

borrowed from New Latin cryptographia, from crypto- crypto- + -graphia -graphy

Note: New Latin cryptographia was perhaps first used by the Limburg-born philologist Erycius Puteanus (Eric de Put, Eric van den Putte, 1574-1646) in "Cryptographia epistolica, sive de clandestina scriptione," an addendum to his Epistolarum reliquiae centuria V (Leuven/Louvain, 1612). An apparently more widely circulated work using the word was Cryptomenytices et cryptographiae libri IX (Lüneburg, 1624) by Gustavus Selenus, pseudonym of Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1579-1666).

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1646

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year