a. [f. as prec. + -AL.] = prec.
1613. R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3), Crupticall, hidden or secret.
1648. Boyle, Seraph. Love, xxiv. (1700), 145. That … cryptical Method and Stile of Scripture.
1844. De Quincey, Greece under Romans, Wks. VIII. 318. These cryptical or subterraneous currents of communication.
Hence Cryptically adv., in a cryptical manner.
1680. Boyle, Produc. Chem. Princ., II. 68. If we take the word Acid … in a familiar sense, without Cryptically distinguishing it from those vapors that are akin to it.
