Codebreakers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals adept at uncovering hidden meanings within encrypted texts
2. Specialists focused on resolving the complexities of coded communications and messages
3. Persons skilled in interpreting and translating secret or encrypted writings

Etymology: "Codebreakers" is simply the plural of "codebreaker," a compound formed from "code" and "breaker." The first element comes from Latin "codex," a block of wooden tablets or a book, which passed into English through Old French and Medieval Latin as a term for a systematic body of law or a set of rules. The second element, "breaker," describes one who breaks something, here in the sense of forcing open or defeating a protection. Put together, the two parts describe someone who defeats a system of secret writing, recovering its meaning without the key. The word is a transparent formation, built the way countless English compounds are, and it reads exactly as it sounds. Its literal parts have changed little, and the sense of breaking a code has stayed close to the surface of the word throughout its use.

Synonyms: cryptanalysts, decoders