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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.

Examples of cryptography in a Sentence

Companies often use cryptography to protect private information.

Recent Examples on the Web But some cryptography experts aren't convinced, and worry that the measures could open the door to other privacy breaches and government surveillance. — Wired Staff, Wired, 13 Aug. 2021 Knots can also be used for studying the paths of objects in moving systems and for cryptography schemes. — Eugenia Cheng, WSJ, 8 July 2021 Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS and iPadOS software will use new cryptography applications. — Andy Meek, BGR, 6 Aug. 2021 Last Theorem to elliptic-curve cryptography today, the study of rational points starts with high school algebra and geometry and leads to advanced mathematics in a beautiful and satisfying way. — Quanta Magazine, 22 July 2021 This procedure has been exploited by mathematicians to create elliptic-curve cryptography, a means of creating secret codes that leverages the structure of these rational points on elliptic curves. — Quanta Magazine, 22 July 2021 In cryptography, some pretty clear standards define common practices, tools, methods and metrics, and organizations should be using these standards to both ensure security and protect their investment in technology. — Gregory Webb, Forbes, 5 Apr. 2021 But much of the actual work in cryptography remains fundamentally abstract. — Lily Hay Newman, Wired, 31 Aug. 2020 Julian Assange had spoken at length about the Cypherpunks, the early 90s movement that sought to enact change through code and the laws of cryptography. — Roger Huang, Forbes, 21 June 2021

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.

History and Etymology for 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).

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