Decifrare

Decifrare is an Italian verb meaning to decipher or recover the meaning of a text, message, or symbol that is encoded, obscured, or ambiguous. It can refer to decoding a coded communication, reading difficult handwriting, or interpreting a text to reveal its intended sense. In broader usage, decifrare also applies to uncovering the implicit meaning of a metaphor, a joke, or a riddle, or to drawing conclusions from incomplete information.

Etymology: The term is formed from de- (undo) and cifrare (to encipher), with cifrare deriving from cifra, a cipher, whose linguistic history traces back to Latin cifra and ultimately to Arabic sifr. The related noun cifrario denotes a system of symbols used in a code, while decifrazione or decifratura are synonyms for the act of deciphering.

Usage and nuance: In cryptography, decifrare denotes recovering the original plaintext from an encoded form, while decodificare is often used for signals or data that follow an explicit code. In philology or paleography, decifrare refers to interpreting ancient or obscure texts and scripts. In everyday language, it can also mean understanding something difficult or opaque by reasoning through clues. Conjugation follows regular -are patterns: io decifro, tu decifri, lui/lei decifra, noi decifriamo, voi decifrate, loro decifrano.