POLYGRAPHIA, or Polygraphice, the art of writing in various unusual manners or cyphers; as also of deciphering the same. The word is formed from the Greek, πολύς, multum, and γράφειν, 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 Lacedaemonian scytala. Trithemius, Porta, Vigenere, and Father Niceron, have written on the subject of polygraphy or cyphers. See Cipher.