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simple

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L327812 on Wikidata ↗

adjective

  1. uncomplicated; taken by itself, with nothing added
  2. childlike, naive, or not very smart
L3623 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪm.pəl/ / [ˈsɪm.pɫ̩] / /ˈsəm.pəl/

adj

Etymology: Inherited from Middle English symple, simple, from Old French simple, from Latin simplex (“simple”, literally “onefold”) (as opposed to duplex (“double”, literally “twofold”)), from semel (“the same”) + plicō (“to fold”). See same and fold. Compare single, singular, simultaneous, etc. Partially displaced native English onefold.

  1. Uncomplicated; lacking complexity; taken by itself, with nothing added.

    “We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?”

    “Primitive people, colossally ignorant of the cause of disease and of curative processes, attributed to supernatural agencies any causes and effects for which their simple minds could give no natural explanations.”

  2. Easy; not difficult.

    “There is no simple way to define precisely a complex arrangement of parts, however homely the object may appear to be.”

    “Point-free coding is a byproduct of adopting declarative programming. You can use point-free coding without FP. But because point-free is all about improving the readability of code at a glance and making it simpler to parse, having the guarantees imposed by FP furthers this cause.”

  3. Without ornamentation; plain.
  4. Free from duplicity; guileless, innocent, straightforward.

    “Full many fine men go upon my score, as simple as I stand here, and I trust them.”

    “Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue?”

  5. Undistinguished in social condition; of no special rank.

    “Garak: Who would want to kill me, a simple tailor? / Odo: A simple tailor? A simple tailor who used to be an agent of the Obsidian Order!”

  6. Trivial; insignificant.

    “‘That was a symple cause,’ seyde Sir Trystram, ‘for to sle a good knyght for seyynge well by his maystir.’”

  7. Feeble-minded; foolish.
  8. Structurally uncomplicated.
  9. Structurally uncomplicated.
  10. Structurally uncomplicated.
  11. Structurally uncomplicated.
  12. Structurally uncomplicated.
  13. Structurally uncomplicated.
  14. Structurally uncomplicated.
  15. Structurally uncomplicated.
  16. Structurally uncomplicated.
  17. Structurally uncomplicated.

    “Chesapeake & Ohio turned to simple articulateds, for instance, simply because its Alleghany tunnels would not accommodate the low-pressure forward cylinders of larger compounds.”

  18. Structurally uncomplicated.

    “a simple ascidian”

  19. Structurally uncomplicated.
  20. Mere; not other than; being only.

    “A medicine […] whose simple touch / Is powerful to araise King Pepin.”

    “"Yes; as well versed in the art of intrigue, I should think, as if she had been brought up in attendance in a court, instead of being a simple butler's daughter, in a gloomy old pile like this!"”

noun

Etymology: Inherited from Middle English symple, simple, from Old French simple, from Latin simplex (“simple”, literally “onefold”) (as opposed to duplex (“double”, literally “twofold”)), from semel (“the same”) + plicō (“to fold”). See same and fold. Compare single, singular, simultaneous, etc. Partially displaced native English onefold.

  1. A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one plant.

    “Dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.”

    “I know there are some simples, which in operation are moistening and some drying.”

  2. A physician.
  3. A simple or atomic proposition.

    “Peter van Inwagen, for example, believes that there are no ordinary objects, no chairs or shirts or shoes. Right here there are just some simples — atoms or whatever — arranged shoe-wise.”

  4. Something not mixed or compounded.

    “But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels”

  5. A drawloom.
  6. Part of the apparatus for raising the heddles of a drawloom.
  7. A feast which is not a double or a semidouble.

verb

Etymology: Inherited from Middle English symple, simple, from Old French simple, from Latin simplex (“simple”, literally “onefold”) (as opposed to duplex (“double”, literally “twofold”)), from semel (“the same”) + plicō (“to fold”). See same and fold. Compare single, singular, simultaneous, etc. Partially displaced native English onefold.

  1. To gather simples, i.e. medicinal herbs.