polyalphabetic
1
9.8
- adjective
- /ˌpɒliˈælphəˌbɛtɪk/
- Specialized
- Cryptographers were on a mission to develop a cipher that was less complex than a polyalphabetic cipher and just as secure.
- polyalphabetic substitution
Examples
-
In cryptography, polyalphabetic techniques help make encrypted messages more difficult to decipher.
-
There are two kinds of substitutions: monoalphabetic and polyalphabetic.
Academic text (1990) -
In order to avoid this problem, polyalphabetic substitution is employed to replace an original letter by the current one of a number of letters for each of its occurrences.
Academic text (1990) -
The monoalphabetic substitution cipher was becoming less secure, leading to the advent of the polyalphabetic cipher and the homophonic cipher.
Blog text (21) -
A polyalphabetic cipher uses multiple alphabets to encode messages securely.
-
Unlike monoalphabetic systems, a polyalphabetic code changes the letter used for encryption each time it appears.
How Many Alphabets
- Specialized
1
9.8
- Specialized
1
9.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
polyalphabetic = alphabetic (semi-transparent) = poly + alphabet + ic
The word is built transparently by adding poly- to alphabetic, giving the clear sense of involving multiple alphabets.
Etymology
Polyalphabetic begins with poly- ('many') and contains alphabet ('letters'), so it means 'many alphabets'. A polyalphabetic code uses several different letter sets to mix up a message and make it hard to read.