DECIPHER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Decipher

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/dɪsˈaɪfər/ Listen

verb

Decipher v. t. (past & past part. deciphered; pres. part. deciphering)

To translate from secret characters or ciphers into intelligible terms; as, to decipher a letter written in secret characters.

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.

To stamp; to detect; to discover. (R.) "You are both deciphered,... For villains."

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Etymology of 'Decipher'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Decipher" Quotes from Famous Books

... for the poorer people, in which he was taught to read and write. By the former of these elementary branches—supplemented by a smattering of Spanish, picked up in South American ports—he is enabled to decipher the writing upon the card—for it is in writing—and so gets the correct address, both the street ...

— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief, shall hear savage hymns chaunted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts,—her ...

— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... in the Journal follow the lines last quoted in this place. Except a word or two, here and there, it is impossible any longer to decipher the writing. The mischief done to her eyes by her reckless use of them, by her fits of crying, by her disturbed nights, by the long-continued strain on her of agitation and suspense, has evidently justified the worst of those unacknowledged forebodings which Grosse felt when he saw ...

— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... though it might not be very legible at best; but on the sheet before her the shaking, uneven letters trailed off into such filiform indistinctness that she had to go through it several times before she could decipher ...

— The Title Market • Emily Post

... search, and on the floor a roll of crumpled paper. This he picked up. The light in this upper story looking to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlour; and he was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the hotel at Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following lines in a very elegant and ...

— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

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