Encoded

How to spell encoded

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce encoded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does encoded mean?

1. verbConverted information into a particular form, system, or set of symbols, often for storage, transmission, or secrecy.
2. adjectiveExpressed in a code or converted format rather than plain, readable form.

Encoded in a sentence

• verb

  The bank encoded every customer record before storing it on the server.

• adjective

  The encoded password was useless to anyone without the decryption key.

• verb

  The agents encoded their messages so rivals could not read them.

• adjective

  She struggled to read the encoded instructions hidden in the file.

Where does encoded come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'encode', which was assembled in English from the prefix 'en-', meaning 'to put into' or 'to cause to be in', and the noun 'code'. The word 'code' itself travelled into English through Old French 'code' from the Latin 'codex', which originally meant a block of wood, then the wooden writing tablets coated in wax that Romans wrote on, and finally a bound book of laws. Over time 'code' came to mean any systematic set of rules or symbols, and by the nineteenth century it described secret or compact systems of signalling. 'Encode' emerged in the twentieth century, especially with telegraphy and later computing, to describe converting a message into such a system, with 'encoded' being its completed-action form. The single letter that catches writers out is the 'c': the root is 'code', so the spelling stays 'enCODEd', never with a 'k'.

How the word is built

• en- (to put into)
• code (system of symbols, from Latin codex 'book, set of laws')
• -ed (past tense/participle)