decipher
v.v. to figure out the meaning of something that is hard to read or understand. You use this when you finally understand a secret code or messy handwriting.
v. to convert a text written in code into a readable form; to succeed in interpreting something obscure or illegible.
I can never decipher my doctor's messy handwriting.
Historians spent decades trying to decipher the ancient inscriptions found on the temple walls.
The intelligence agency worked around the clock to decipher the encrypted transmission, knowing that the contents were vital to national security.
As decypher, but not retaining the y from the Old French etyma of cipher (cyfre, cyffre); the i spelling tends to be preferred etymologically, being consistent with its cognates, the French déchiffrer and the Italian decifrare, and with their common ancestor, the Medieval Latin cifra, cifera, ciphra. By surface analysis, de- + cipher.
The verb is transitive and requires a direct object, such as a code, a message, or handwriting.
decipher about the codedecipher the codeDecipher is a transitive verb and does not take the preposition 'about'.