simple · Contextualize

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.

derived from simplex — “simple”
derived from simple
inherited from symple

Definitions

1
Uncomplicated
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.
- The simplest soliton is the domain wall with co-dimension one, and the next simplest is the vortex with co-dimension two, whereas the co-dimension three (four) soliton is called monopole (instanton).
2
Easy
Easy; not difficult.
- There is no simple way to define precisely a complex arrangement of parts, however homely the object may appear to be.
Without ornamentation
Without ornamentation; plain.
›+ 14 more definitionsshow fewer
1. 4
  Free from duplicity
  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?
  - Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. The vision of genius comes by renouncing the too officious activity of the understanding, and giving leave and amplest privilege to the spontaneous sentiment.
2. 5
  Undistinguished in social condition
  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!
3. 6
  Trivial
  Trivial; insignificant.
  - ‘That was a symple cause,’ seyde Sir Trystram, ‘for to sle a good knyght for seyynge well by his maystir.’
4. Feeble-minded
  Feeble-minded; foolish.
5. Structurally uncomplicated.
6. 9
  Mere
  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!"
7. 10
  A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one…
  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.
  - [W]hat Virtue there is in this Remedy lies in the naked Simple it ſelf, as it comes over from the Indies, and in the Choice of that which is leaſt dried, or periſhed by the Voyage.
8. A physician.
9. 12
  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.
10. 13
  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
11. A drawloom.
12. Part of the apparatus for raising the heddles of a drawloom.
13. A feast which is not a double or a semidouble.
14. To gather simples, i.e. medicinal herbs.

The neighborhood

Derived

central simple algebra, fee simple, future simple, gentle and simple, gentle nor simple, gentle or simple, it's as simple as that, nonsimple, oversimple, past simple, plain and simple, present simple, pure and simple, quasisimple, semisimple, simple algebra, simple as, simple as a pimple, simple as kiss your hand, simple beam, simple connectedness, simple connectivity, simple continued fraction, simple contract, simple curve, simple dislocation, simple engine, simple English, simple equation, simple extension, simple eye, simple fraction, simple fracture, simple fruit, simple function, simple future, simple group, simple harmonic motion, simple harmonic oscillator, simplehead · +49 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for simple. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.