cryptographer

noun

cryp·​tog·​ra·​pher krip-ˈtä-grə-fər 

: a specialist in cryptography: such as

a

: a clerk who enciphers and deciphers messages

b

: one who devises cryptographic methods or systems

c

: cryptanalyst

Examples of cryptographer in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The master cryptographer secured a meeting with the director of the Military Intelligence Corps and successfully petitioned to have the agency rolled into a permanent peacetime entity funded by the State Department and the War Department. —Peter Zablocki, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Feb. 2025

But when designing a new algorithm, cryptographers need to balance security with many other concerns, such as the amount of information two computers need to exchange and the difficulty of the computation required to encrypt and decrypt messages. —Kelsey Houston-Edwards, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024

This realization prompted Bos to apply for a Ph.D. program in the lab of renowned cryptographer Arjen Lenstra at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. —IEEE Spectrum, 28 Dec. 2024

Juan Garay, a cryptographer at Texas A&M and a colleague of mine, is currently researching the use of Lamport signatures within Bitcoin. —Korok Ray, Forbes, 17 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

cryptography + -er entry 2

First Known Use

1641, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for cryptographer

• biographer
• demographer
• ethnographer
• geographer
• hydrographer
• lithographer
• photographer
• topographer
• typographer
• bibliographer
• choreographer
• historiographer