Cypher
Word of the day: cypher
Context: He counts votes and secures them, and he uses the rulebook to achieve narrow victories, but when it come to policy-the substances of legislation-he's a cypher whose only real guidestar seem to be the maintenance of political power.
Source: Reason, February 2019, p10, The McConnell Era Has Been Terrible For American Politics, by Peter Suderman.
Cypher: ci·pher [ˈsīfər] NOUN cypher (noun) a secret or disguised way of writing; a code. "He was writing cryptic notes in a cipher" · [more] synonyms: code · secret writing · coded message · cryptograph · cryptogram dated a zero; a figure 0. synonyms: zero · nought · nil · 0 · naught a monogram. synonyms: numeral · number · integer · figure · digit · character · symbol · sign.
A person or thing of no value or importance; nonentity.
VERB cypher (verb) put (a message) into secret writing; encode. archaic do arithmetic.
Comment: I would have know the word in context of writing in secret code. In this context I did not recognize the word and I did not know the definition of the word as a person of no importance or a nonentity. Now I do.
Context: He counts votes and secures them, and he uses the rulebook to achieve narrow victories, but when it come to policy-the substances of legislation-he's a cypher whose only real guidestar seem to be the maintenance of political power.
Source: Reason, February 2019, p10, The McConnell Era Has Been Terrible For American Politics, by Peter Suderman.
Cypher: ci·pher [ˈsīfər] NOUN cypher (noun) a secret or disguised way of writing; a code. "He was writing cryptic notes in a cipher" · [more] synonyms: code · secret writing · coded message · cryptograph · cryptogram dated a zero; a figure 0. synonyms: zero · nought · nil · 0 · naught a monogram. synonyms: numeral · number · integer · figure · digit · character · symbol · sign.
A person or thing of no value or importance; nonentity.
VERB cypher (verb) put (a message) into secret writing; encode. archaic do arithmetic.
Comment: I would have know the word in context of writing in secret code. In this context I did not recognize the word and I did not know the definition of the word as a person of no importance or a nonentity. Now I do.
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