decoder
Americannoun
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a person who decodes messages or the like.
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a device for decoding cryptograms, codes, or the like, as an electric or electronic apparatus that transforms arbitrary input signals into letters, words, etc.
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Navigation. an electronic circuit designed to respond only to certain signals and to reject others.
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Computers. a circuit designed to produce a single output when actuated by a certain combination of inputs.
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Television. a box attached to a television set containing circuitry to unscramble encoded signals, as cable-television programs or closed captions, so that the signals can be displayed on the screen.
Etymology
Origin of decoder
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 18, 2026
He said that Ising’s two AI models, Ising Calibration and Ising Decoder, tackle major challenges that could otherwise impede the creation of quantum systems.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 15, 2026
The creativity underscores Matlin’s advocacy before Congress, whose passage of the 1990 Television Decoder Circuitry Act mandated closed-captioning technology for televisions sold in the United States.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2025
"Decoder" software found sensory information in all areas of the cortex during the awake state but during unconsciousness, less and less information could be found the higher up the cortex the researchers looked.
From Science Daily • Nov. 8, 2023
This article is adapted from an episode of Decoder Ring, Slate’s podcast about cracking cultural mysteries, as well as the book Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.
From Slate • May 3, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
