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I am looking for a word that describes both of these activities, however the word coding does not seem to be suitable.

Likewise with encryption and decryption, cryption does not work well.

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It's worth noting that, for practical purposes, a person who encodes/decodes digital information is often professionally called an archivist and refers to his work as archival. –  HaL Jul 31 '12 at 16:09
Related: Word for encoder-decoder –  RegDwigнt Jul 31 '12 at 16:34
Where would we be without you, @Reg? (knee-deep in unclosed duplicates, I suspect! :) –  FumbleFingers Jul 31 '12 at 22:58
I agree this duplicates the related question (which asks for one "word [for] encoder and decoder functionality"). Note, the answer there correctly identifies a device that does both but doesn't answer the question asked. Should merge questions? –  jwpat7 Aug 1 '12 at 16:55

5 Answers 5

up vote 3 down vote accepted


is the study of encryption and decryption.


is software/hardware that does both encoding and decoding.

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Cryptography is the study of passing information without a third party being able to receive it. It wouldn't apply to encoding/decoding mp3s, for example. –  z7sg Ѫ Jul 31 '12 at 18:21
Codec is defined as the library describing the way to encode and decode a format. This answer is wrong. Cryptography doesn't relate to the ACTION of encrypting or decrypting, so the extra info you added is also wrong. –  Nathan C. Tresch Jul 31 '12 at 20:27
@NathanC.Tresch This answer accepted as codec is the word i was looking for. Debate about crypography TBC. –  NWS Aug 1 '12 at 6:41

Would transcoding be suitable in your context ?

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Unfortunately the parallel construction of "transcryption" just looks like a misspelling of "transcription", which means something quite different. :/ –  Marthaª Jul 31 '12 at 16:00
Ooh. I like transcryption. I shall find somewhere to use that and then shower disdain on those who attempt to correct it. –  Andrew Leach Jul 31 '12 at 16:09
+1 for the right answer. –  Nathan C. Tresch Jul 31 '12 at 20:27
Encode means : "To translate information into code"
Decode means : "To translate code into information"

Therefore translate would be used to describe them both.

Since translate may seem vague I would suggest some synonyms: transcribe, transpose, or convert.

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Why does everyone and OP have a problem with "coding". This is the correct term for encoding and decoding. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coding_theory

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Possibly because in a programming context it can cover almost everything we do. It becomes generic to the point of uselessness. –  NWS Aug 1 '12 at 6:38
@NWS: The coding of a channel vs. the process of coding a program is not likely to be confused from context. The subjects aren't even of the same type (abstract idea vs. person) –  ThePopMachine Aug 1 '12 at 15:54

How about pure and simple “processing”?

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