Definition of "ciphering" [ciphering]

• Present participle of cipher. (verb)

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• "“They make up a balanced account with Heaven, as our old cellarer used to call his ciphering, as fair as Isaac the Jew keeps with his debtors, and, like him, give out a very little, and take large credit for doing so; reckoning, doubtless, on their own behalf the seven-fold usury which the blessed text hath promised to charitable loans.”"
• "Men are ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not ciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is hustled out of sight."
• "` ` They make up a balanced account with Heaven, as our old cellarer used to call his ciphering, as fair as Isaac the"