DECIPHER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does decipher mean? 

• DECIPHER (verb)
  The verb DECIPHER has 2 senses:

1. convert code into ordinary language

2. read with difficulty

  Familiarity information: DECIPHER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DECIPHER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they decipher    ... he / she / it deciphers   
Past simple: deciphered   
Past participle: deciphered   
-ing form: deciphering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Convert code into ordinary language

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

decipher; decode; decrypt

Hypernyms (to "decipher" is one way to...):

rewrite (write differently; alter the writing of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

decipherer (a reader capable of reading and interpreting illegible or obscure text)

decipherer (the kind of intellectual who converts messages from a code to plain text)

decipherment (the activity of making clear or converting from code into plain text)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Read with difficulty

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

decipher; trace

Context example:

The archeologist traced the hieroglyphs

Hypernyms (to "decipher" is one way to...):

read (interpret something that is written or printed)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

Future investigations will require the elimination of platelets from the whole blood sample in order to decipher any age-related increases in the number of bone-like particles.

(Bone-Like Particles Found Travelling through Human Bloodstream, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

At Drexel's Center for Biological Diversity from Big Data, researchers are applying algorithms and machine learning to help decipher massive amounts of genetic sequencing.

(Microbes are at work in our bodies, and researchers have figured out what they're up to, National Science Foundation)

In a series of experiments, the team went on to decipher the role of Stat3.

(Controlling Muscle Repair, NIH)

The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) is an interdisciplinary program to establish the information and technological tools needed to decipher the molecular anatomy of a cancer cell.

(Cancer Genome Anatomy Project, NCI Thesaurus)

At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

First, they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and it was with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)