Polygraphic substitution

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Polygraphic substitution is a cipher in which a uniform substitution is performed on blocks of letters. When the length of the block is specifically known, more precise terms are used: for instance, a cipher in which pairs of letters are substituted is bigraphic.

As a concept, polygraphic substitution contrasts with monoalphabetic (or simple) substitutions in which individual letters are uniformly substituted, or polyalphabetic substitutions in which individual letters are substituted in different ways depending on their position in the text. In theory, there is some overlap in these definitions; one could conceivably consider a Vigenère cipher with an eight-letter key to be an octographic substitution. In practice, this is not a useful observation since it is far more fruitful to consider it to be a polyalphabetic substitution cipher.