All 5 Uses of
cipher
in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- The duke says: "Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we want to.†
Chpt 20
- So the duke said it WAS kind of hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it.†
Chpt 24 *
- There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he would go down to the town and fix that thing.†
Chpt 20
- By and by he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide on any of them yet.†
Chpt 36
- When he had ciphered it out he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and Tom says: "Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons YET."†
Chpt 37
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cipher as in: a secret cipher) to write a message in a secret code; or such a message; or a substitution table or other system used to encode and decode such a message
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) At one time, cipher frequently referenced the act of doing mathematical calculations or a person capable of such calculations.
A cipher can also refer to a person without power or influence. It can also refer to the mathematical digit, zero.
A comprehensive dictionary will describe other less common senses of cipher.