decode

Etymology

de- + code

verb

1. To convert from an encrypted form to plain text.
   The cryptographer decoded the secret message and sent the result to the officer.
2. To figure out something difficult to interpret.
   I finally managed to decode the nearly illegible doctor's prescription.

noun

1. (cryptography) A product of decoding
   If and when the remaining Allied intercepts and decodes are opened up, we may expect to learn a great deal more about the later stages of the Holocaust. 2004, David Cesarani, Holocaust: Responses to the Persecution and Mass Murder of the Jews, page 148
   The British picked up a decode in November 1942 indicating that guards at Auschwitz would need six hundred gas masks. 2005, Richard Breitman, U.S. Intelligence And The Nazis, page 31
   Decodes stating that Hollandia airfields were becoming overcrowded with IJA aircraft waiting to stage forward to Wewak led to pre-emptive strikes by Allied air forces and the destruction of more than 300 Japanese aircraft on the ground. 2006, Ian Pfennigwerth, A Man of Intelligence, page 223
   He was sure that references to AK in the intercepts stood for Midway, but none of the decodes made the identification certain. 2011, Hervie Haufler, Codebreakers' Victory, page 192
2. (computing) Output from a program or device used to interpret communication protocols
   This version includes more than 400 decodes that cover everything from legacy decodes to popular decodes and new or updated decodes for such protocols as voice over IP H.323, Server Message Block, Border Gateway Protocol Version 4, and Internet Inter-ORB Protocol 1999, Laura Wonnacott, “Sniffer Pro sees some switches”, in Info World, page 37