small fry vs cypher

small fry and cypher both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
small fry	Yes	No	No	No
cypher	Yes	No	Yes	No

As nouns, cypher is a hypernym of small fry; that is, cypher is a word with a broader meaning than small fry:

Other hypernyms of small fry include cipher, nobody, nonentity.

small fry (noun)	cypher (noun)
someone who is small and insignificant	a secret method of writing
a young person of either sex	a message written in a secret code
	a person of no influence
	a quantity of no importance; thing (object:), singular, negative pronoun; pronoun, thing, singular; quantifier: negative existential
	a mathematical element that when added to another number yields the same number

small fry (verb)	cypher (verb)
	make a mathematical calculation or computation
	convert ordinary language into code