Dictionary

scrambler en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From scramble + -er.

Meanings

1. Someone or something that scrambles (in various senses).
   • May it comfort us latter-day scramblers up that fine old mountain to know that Le Conte found it "difficult and fatiguing in the extreme." 1984, Elizabeth Stone O'Neill, Meadow in the Sky: A History of Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows Region, page 31:
   • Want an egg sunny-side up? Just crack one into a container, nuke it for 30 seconds, extract it with the handy-dandy Egg Remover, and enjoy a soft yolk breakfast. If you want it scrambled, insert the gridded Egg Scrambler […] 2002, Lou Harry, Sam Stall, As Seen on TV:
2. A vine that does not attach itself to its supports.
   • Scramblers and palms that climb with the aid of hook-bearing leaves or modified inflorescences (i.e. Desmoncus and the lepidocaryoid rattans) climbed most successfully in dense clusters of small diameter supports, such as occur on the edge of treefall gaps. 1991, Francis E. Putz, The Biology of Vines, page 77:
3. A device that makes messages intentionally, but reversibly, unintelligible for reasons of privacy or security.
   • In the movies spies are always talking over cell phones with built-in scramblers.
4. A motorcycle used for motocross.

Forms

Antonyms

unscrambler (antonym(s) of “a device which scrambles messages/information”) · descrambler (antonym(s) of “a device which scrambles messages/information”)

Deriveds

descrambler · unscrambler