Etymology

cryptomorphic

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Today it means: Two objects, especially systems of axioms or semantics for them, are called cryptomorphic if they are equivalent (possibly in some informal sense) but not obviously equivalent. Full definition →

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The story

Coined by Garrett Birkhoff before 1967, for use in the third edition of his book Lattice Theory.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.