Encrypt

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɪnˈkɹɪpt/

Definitions

1. To change information into a secret code to protect it from being understood by anyone not authorized
2. To transform data using a method that conceals its content so only authorized parties can interpret it
3. To encode messages or data so that their meaning is hidden from unauthorized users through specific algorithms

Etymology: The verb "encrypt" is built from a Greek root hidden inside a prefix. Its core, "crypt", comes from Ancient Greek "kruptos", meaning "hidden, concealed, private, secret". That same root gave English "crypt", a vault or burial chamber that is literally a hidden space, and it also appears in "cryptic", something whose meaning is concealed. The prefix "en-" meant "in" or "into", so "encrypt" is essentially "to put into a hidden form". The sense of scrambling a message for secrecy developed on top of that older idea of concealment. Writing something in code or cipher was a way of hiding its meaning in plain sight, and the Greek root had long described exactly that quality of being shut away from the uninitiated. Modern computing took the word and applied it to data, so that a file or message is hidden not by a locked box but by a mathematical transformation that only a key-holder can reverse.

Synonyms: code, cipher, encode, secure, protect

Antonyms: decrypt, decode, reveal, expose, disclose