cipher:
(also ‘cypher‘; plural: ‘ciphers‘; pronunciation: the letters ‘ci’ rhyme with the letters ‘si’ in “sight”, and the letters ‘ph’ rhyme with the letter ‘f’ in the word ‘first’ — for the right pronunciation of this word, please click here)
Apart from more common meanings/definitions…
a person without power or importance,
a lone cipher
e.g.
Most clients visiting our office mistake John for the boss because he looks smart, but in fact, he is just a cipher like many of us.
Kamis left his job because he was promised a responsible position at the interview but, after the selection, he was made a cipher in the office whom nobody bothered to consult or respect.
We see several political big shots turning into mere ciphers in the Party when they do not win the elections.
Note: The word ‘cipher’, as a noun, also means (a) a secret coded message (b) a key to a coded message (c) (very old usage) the number ‘0’; and, as a verb, it means ‘to put a message into writing in a special way using signs or symbols so that people other than a particular group cannot read and understand it’, and ‘to solve a mathematical problem’ and ‘to write/decode/break a secret/code message into a normal writing so that anyone who knows that language can read it’.
For an article that shows how this word ‘cipher’ referring to a person without power or importance pops up in a text, please click here, and for another article, in the form of a poem, where again we see this word ‘cipher’ refers to a powerless and unimportant person, please click here. And for an article on cipher referring to the more common meaning ‘a coded message’, please click here.
Note: the videos you see on the right and below this text are not entirely relevant to the meaning of this entry word — an unimportant person; they are related to ‘coded messages’ and other computer applications, which is one of the more common meanings the word ‘cipher’ has. However, these videos are posted here for the learners to listen to the pronunciation of this word and practise it. (The weblearneng.org does not own these videos.)
