trapdoor function

American  

noun

Mathematics.

1. a function defined from data by means of a mathematical procedure in such a way that it is easy to obtain the function when the data are known, but when the procedure and data are not known it becomes very difficult to determine the original data: used in cryptography, where the data are the characters of the plain text, or message, and the trapdoor function is the cryptogram.

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Etymology

Origin of trapdoor function

First recorded in 1975–80; by analogy with a trapdoor in a floor, through which it is easier to fall than to reemerge after a fall