Decipher
[dɪ'saɪfə] or [dɪ'saɪfɚ]
Definition
(verb.) read with difficulty; 'Can you decipher this letter?'; 'The archeologist traced the hieroglyphs'.
Checked by Brits--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To translate from secret characters or ciphers into intelligible terms; as, to decipher a letter written in secret characters.
(v. t.) To find out, so as to be able to make known the meaning of; to make out or read, as words badly written or partly obliterated; to detect; to reveal; to unfold.
(v. t.) To stamp; to detect; to discover.
Checker: Ronnie
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Unravel, unfold, interpret, reveal, explain, expound.[2]. Read, make out.
Typed by Clarissa
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Bead, spell, interpret, solve, unravel, explain, unfold
ANT:Cipher, symbolize, empuzzle, mystify, enigmatize
Editor: Orville
Definition
v.t. to uncipher or read secret writing: to make out what is unintelligible or obscure: to reveal.—adj. Deci′pherable.—n. Deci′pherment.
Typed by Juan
Examples
- He read as much of his notes to the jury as he could decipher on so short a notice, and made running-comments on the evidence as he went along. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher it--or, I ought to say, will she? Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- First, they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- The recording telegraph instruments hitherto noticed impress on the paper only hieroglyphical symbols, which require long practice to decipher readily. Frederick C. Bakewell. Great Facts.
- As a consequence it is frequently almost impossible to decipher earthly messages owing to the imperious signals from the clouds. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- For ordinary copying work, where much time is occupied in deciphering the illegible scrawl, probably forty words a minute is the average work. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- They had a system of writing which has not yet been deciphered. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder. Jane Austen. Emma.
- The inscriptions the sightseers scribbled upon the walls remain to this day, and many of them have been deciphered and published. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Checked by Anita