cryptologyn.

1645 J. Howell Epistolæ Ho-elianæ iii. xxxvii. 119 Cryptology, or Epistolizing in a Clandestin way, is very ancient.

1740 J. Milner Pract. Gram. Greek Tongue (ed. 2) Pref. sig. a3 Rules too much contracted appear like a piece of Cryptology.

1840 New Monthly Mag. 60 226 Certain advertising individuals..are most mischievously addicted to another species of cryptology.

1859 Life-long Story iv. 33 They would throw off a masterly translation of the mysterious hieroglyphical cryptology on the resuscitated sarcophagi of Assyria or Egypt.

1935 Eng. Hist. Rev. 50 550 New-comers to legal history properly expect to find the cryptology of the text explained in the translation.

1844 Sat. Mag. 8 June 223/1 Some persons, indeed, have dignified this art by the name of a science, under the various titles of cryptology, cryptography, polygraphy, steganography, &c.

1881 London Society Feb. 120/1 ‘Have you studied cryptology as a science, Mr. Higgins?’ asked Mr. Withers, with a wild effort at elaborate courtesy.

1945 J. S. Galland (title) An historical and analytical bibliography of the literature of cryptology.

1957 Encycl. Brit. V. 923/1 Because of..the remarkable progress made in communications-electronics technology, cryptology has come to play a very important role in governmental communications.

1967 D. Kahn Codebreakers p. xvi Cryptology is the science that embraces cryptography and cryptanalysis.

2002 Science 16 Aug. 1106/1 Modern cryptology..relies on hard-to-factor composite (nonprime) numbers to encrypt information.