All 3 Uses of
cipher
in
Moby Dick
- First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body.†
Chpt 43-45unconventional spelling: This is a British spelling option. The British also use cipher which is used by Americans.
- These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion.†
Chpt 67-69 *unconventional spelling: This is a British spelling option. The British also use ciphers which is used by Americans.
- And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.†
Chpt 97-99
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) 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.