Cryptex

//ˈkɹɪptɛks// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A puzzle box solved with a passcode.

    "Sophie was not surprised. Most of Leonardo’s unbuilt inventions had never been studied or even named. The term cryptex possibly had been her grandfather’s creation, an apt title for this device that used the science of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or codex."

Example

More examples

"Sophie was not surprised. Most of Leonardo’s unbuilt inventions had never been studied or even named. The term cryptex possibly had been her grandfather’s creation, an apt title for this device that used the science of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or codex."

Etymology

Blend of cryptology + codex, coined in The Da Vinci Code (2003); see quotations.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.