What does encrypt mean?
To encrypt something is to transform readable information into a coded, unintelligible form so that only someone possessing the right key or password can restore and read it. The word belongs chiefly to the vocabulary of computing and information security: we encrypt emails, hard drives, databases, phone calls, and web traffic to keep personal, financial, and commercial data safe from interception or theft. In ordinary use, encrypt is transitive and pairs naturally with objects like data, files, and messages, while its noun form, encryption, names the process itself. The concept has ancient roots — Julius Caesar famously shifted letters of the alphabet to disguise military orders — but modern encryption relies on sophisticated mathematics and is woven invisibly into daily life. Every secure website visit, online payment, and end-to-end-encrypted chat depends on it. As privacy concerns have grown, encryption has become one of the most consequential technologies of the digital age, prized by individuals and institutions alike for keeping secrets genuinely secret.
verbTo convert information or data into a coded form, especially in order to prevent unauthorized access; to encode a message so that it can be read only by someone holding the appropriate key.
- To convert plaintext data into ciphertext using a cipher or key, so that it is unreadable without authorization.
- (By extension) to protect digital communications, files, or devices by applying such encryption.
"The app encrypts all messages end-to-end, so even the company itself cannot read them."
"All sensitive customer records are encrypted before being stored on the server."
"She enabled a setting that encrypts her laptop's entire hard drive."
Every message you send through a modern messaging app is scrambled so thoroughly that not even the company running it can peek inside — and it all happens in milliseconds, billions of times a day.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of encrypt
Encrypt derives from the Greek root 'kryptos', meaning hidden or concealed, combined with the prefix 'en-' indicating conversion into a state. It entered English in the mid-20th century, formed within the specialized vocabulary of cryptography alongside older terms like 'cryptogram' and 'cryptography'. The same Greek root gives us 'cryptic', 'crypt' (an underground chamber), and 'apocrypha', all carrying a core sense of concealment.
Related word forms
How encrypt is actually used
Encrypt is a technical term used primarily in computing and security contexts; it is standard in both formal and everyday usage. It is almost always transitive and typically takes data, files, messages, or communications as its object. The past participle 'encrypted' is frequently used adjectivally (e.g., an encrypted connection).
Easily confused with encrypt
Encrypt means to convert readable information into code, while decrypt means to convert that coded information back into readable form.
Encoding merely converts data into another format (which anyone knowing the format can reverse), whereas encrypting specifically renders it unreadable without a secret key.