cryptology

noun

Etymology: From crypto- + -logy, from Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós, “hidden”) + λόγος (lógos, “word”); originally after Latin cryptologia, which is apparently first recorded in an English context.

1. The science or study of mathematical, linguistic, and other coding patterns and histories.

   “Meronyms: cryptography, cryptanalysis; encoding, decoding; encrypting, decrypting, decyphering”

2. The practice of analysing encoded messages, in order to decode them.

   “Near-synonyms: cryptanalysis, decoding, decrypting, decyphering”

3. Secret or enigmatical language.

   “But the question of speech-play causes confusion to the slang researcher because this subject borders on family slang, private lingo, secret language, cryptologies, disguised language of children and grown-ups”