Cipher — The Atlas

Late antiquity

Cipher is derived from Zero.
The European word for zero is historically a borrowing-path, not an occult void. Secret writing is a later sense.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
derived from · sourced · documented
Zero is historically related to Cipher.
English cipher once named zero, from Arabic ṣifr, itself in conversation with Sanskrit śūnya. Later “cipher” as secret writing is another job of the word.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
historically related to · sourced · documented

Eighteenth-century Europe

Cipher is historically related to Writing.
The later English sense of cipher as secret writing is a word’s career, not zero’s mathematical job.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
historically related to · interpretive · documented

sources