a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number
a quantity of no importance;
"it looked like nothing I had ever seen before" "reduced to nil all the work we had done" "we racked up a pathetic goose egg" "it was all for naught" "I didn't hear zilch about it"
a person of no influence
a secret method of writing
Verb:
convert ordinary language into code;
"We should encode the message for security reasons"
The army uses a special cipher so that military messages are kept secret. 军队使用一种特殊密码,军事电讯因此得以保密。
The cipher took me three weeks before I hit it. 我费了3个多星期才把这密码解释出来。
Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time. 年龄只是个阿拉伯数字。一个人不能让他的经验退休。他必须用它。依靠经验,可以用较少的精力和时间获得更多。
用作动词 (v.)
I couldn't cipher out why she was there. 我搞不清她为什么会在那儿。
He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, to write, to cipher. 他四十岁进学校,学习了读,写,算。