POLYGRAPHY, POLYGRAPHIA, or Polygraphice, the art of writing in various unusual manners or ciphers; as also of deciphering the same. The word is formed from the Greek, πολυ, multum, and γραφειν, scriptura, "writing."
The ancients seem to have been very little acquainted with this art; nor is there any mark of their having gone beyond the Lacedæmonian scytala. Trithemius, Porta, Vigenere, and father Nicron, have written on the subject of polygraphy or ciphers. See CIPHER.