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as in nobody
a person of no importance or influence
it was either write the Great American Novel or be consigned to the status of a cipher in the annals of literature
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to figure
to determine (a value) by doing the necessary mathematical operations
were surprised by how much we had spent on the cruise after we had ciphered out the grand total
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of cipher
Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 14 Feb. 2025
Lively’s Lily Bloom is a cipher for the millennial woman resisting the pull of becoming her boomer mother.
—Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2025
Stephen Nash, New York Times, 25 July 2017
See All Example Sentences for cipher
Noun
Atom and Claudette with recognizable humanity, the film’s artistry turns them into ciphers and symbols of the numbing effects of ethnic conflict.
—Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 14 Feb. 2025
Lively’s Lily Bloom is a cipher for the millennial woman resisting the pull of becoming her boomer mother.
—Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2025
Verb
These remnants, signals from an earlier phase of our human condition, have been endlessly ciphered by generations of archaeologists in the Bears Ears region (which is named for twin buttes near its center).
—Stephen Nash, New York Times, 25 July 2017
See All Example Sentences for cipher
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cipher
Noun
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My memoir was built of gaps, juxtaposition, weird little nothings.—
Cheri Lucas Rowlands,
Longreads,
16 Dec. 2024
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The one whose legs turned nothings into somethings, improvising the Lions’ entire defensive game plan into a pile of ash?—
Sean Keeler,
The Denver Post,
10 Feb. 2024
Noun
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While some men are jumping on board, the most popular of these creators—which range from nobodies doing voiceovers to far-right provocateurs like Candance Owens and Megyn Kelly—are women speaking to other women.—
Stephanie McNeal,
Glamour,
14 Mar. 2025
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Those free passes were a frequent abuse of the law in the past, and low-profile corporate nobodies got away with them for years.—
The Editorial Board,
Chicago Tribune,
2 Feb. 2025
Verb
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Barring an offensive rejuvenation, Heyward figures to be a part-time player for a team that continues to seek a more permanent solution in left field.—
Dennis Lin,
New York Times,
26 Mar. 2025
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Here, the East Side, more humble though also more self-consciously hip, figures prominently.—
Porochista Khakpour,
The Atlantic,
26 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Audio gear using vacuum-tubes continues to attract music lovers in much the same way that an LP spun on a turntable can seem more alive, fleshed out, simply real compared to digital’s ones and zeros.—
Robert Ross,
Robb Report,
26 Mar. 2025
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If that number was rounded off to nine quintillion, that’s nine followed by 18 zeroes.—
Blair Kerkhoff,
Kansas City Star,
16 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Emperor tamarins are dwarf monkeys with whiskers that resemble a white moustache.—
Robert Higgs,
cleveland,
1 Feb. 2023
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The dwarf variety grows to be about 5 to 7 feet, ideal for a small garden or accent in a room with limited space.—
Bryce Jones,
Better Homes & Gardens,
24 Jan. 2023
Verb
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Just imagine: estate planners breathing easy, CPAs not chained to their desks for 80 hours a week, and appraisers not calculating business valuations in their sleep.—
Darren T. Case,
Forbes.com,
31 Mar. 2025
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As of Friday, the Lamont administration had not begun the painful process of calculating what Trump’s assault on economic sense would likely cost.—
Kevin Rennie,
Hartford Courant,
29 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Keep reading to find more great lightweight, cooling comforters and quilts below—all on sale.—
Stephanie Osmanski,
Better Homes & Gardens,
31 Mar. 2025
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The Bangles were dismissed as lightweights While poring over old newspaper and magazine stories about the band, Bickerdike was struck by the rampant sexism applied to The Bangles, now shrugged off as a product of the era.—
Melissa Ruggieri,
USA Today,
26 Mar. 2025
Verb
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But their work didn’t rule out the possibility of bizarre algorithms that could somehow use the same piece of memory for storage and calculations simultaneously—the computing equivalent of using a page filled with important notes as scratch paper.—
Ben Brubaker,
Wired News,
30 Mar. 2025
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Put simply, this is a mathematical function that is easy to compute moving forward in time, but extremely difficult to compute in the opposite direction.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
28 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Cipher.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cipher. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.
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