simple

From Middle English symple, simple, from Old French and French simple, from Latin simplex (“simple”, literally “onefold”) (as opposed to duplex (“double”, literally “twofold”), from sim- (“the same”) + plicare (“to fold”). See same and fold. Compare single, singular, simultaneous, etc.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪmpəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪmpəl
• Hyphenation: sim‧ple

simple (comparative simpler or more simple, superlative simplest or most simple)

1. Uncomplicated; taken by itself, with nothing added.
   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0088:

     “[…] 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? […]”

   • 2001, Sydney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Cambridge University Press →ISBN, page 167,

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

2. Without ornamentation; plain.
3. Free from duplicity; guileless, innocent, straightforward.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Marston

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

   • (Can we date this quote?) Lord Byron

     Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue?

   • (Can we date this quote?) Ralph Waldo Emerson

     To be simple is to be great.

4. Undistinguished in social condition; of no special rank.
5. (now rare) Trivial; insignificant.
   • 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book X:

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

6. (now colloquial) Feeble-minded; foolish.
7. (heading, technical) Structurally uncomplicated.
   1. (chemistry) Consisting of one single substance; uncompounded.
   2. (mathematics) Of a group: having no normal subgroup.
   3. (botany) Not compound, but possibly lobed.
   4. (of a steam engine) Using steam only once in its cylinders, in contrast to a compound engine, where steam is used more than once in high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders.
      • 1959, Steam's Finest Hour, edited by David P. Morgan, Kalmbach Publishing Co., page 6:

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

   5. (zoology) Consisting of a single individual or zooid; not compound.

      a simple ascidian

   6. (mineralogy) Homogenous.
8. (obsolete) Mere; not other than; being only.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

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

• (consisting of a single part or aspect): onefold
• (having few parts or features): plain
• See also Thesaurus:easy and Thesaurus:bare-bones

• (having few parts or features): complex, compound, complicated
• (uncomplicated): subtle

simple (plural simples)

1. (medicine) A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one plant.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 37, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

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

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir W. Temple

     What virtue is in this remedy lies in the naked simple itself as it comes over from the Indies.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:

     The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful.

2. (obsolete) A term for a physician, derived from the medicinal term above.
3. (logic) A simple or atomic proposition.
4. (obsolete) Something not mixed or compounded.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     compounded of many simples

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

simple (third-person singular simple present simples, present participle simpling, simple past and past participle simpled)

1. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) To gather simples, i.e., medicinal herbs.

• simpler
• simplist
• simplify

• LEMSIP, impels

Borrowed from Latin simplex.

simple (epicene, plural simples)

1. simple (uncomplicated)

• cenciellu

Borrowed from Latin simplex.

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /ˈsim.plə/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈsim.ple/

simple (masculine and feminine plural simples)

1. simple (uncomplicated)
2. single (not divided into parts)

• senzill

• fulla simple (“simple leaf”)
• simplement (“simply”)

• símplex (“simplex”)
• simplicitat (“simplicity”)
• ximple

From Spanish simple (“simple”).

simple

1. simple

From simpla +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsimple/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sim‧ple

simple

1. simply

From Old French, borrowed from Latin simplex.

• IPA^(key): /sɛ̃pl/

• audio

  (file)

simple (plural simples)

1. simple

   Un homme simple

   A simple man

2. one-way

   Un billet simple

   A one-way ticket

3. mere

   Un simple soldat

   A mere soldier

The first and second meanings are taken when the adjective is placed after the noun. The third meaning is taken when it is located before the noun.

• → Romanian: simplu

simple m (plural simples)

1. one-way ticket
2. (baseball) single

• “simple” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• emplis

Borrowed from Latin simplex. Displaced Old Portuguese simplez.

simple m or f (plural simples)

1. simple

simple

1. inflected form of simpel

simple

1. vocative masculine singular of simplus

simple

1. Alternative form of symple

simple

1. Alternative form of symple

simple

1. definite singular of simpel
2. plural of simpel

simple

1. definite singular of simpel
2. plural of simpel

• sinple

Borrowed from Latin simplex.

simple m (oblique and nominative feminine singular simple)

1. innocent
2. mere; simple
3. honest; without pretense
4. peasant, pauper (attibutive)

• French: simple
  • → Romanian: simplu
• → Middle English: symple, simple
  • Scots: semple
  • English: simple

• IPA^(key): [ˈsim.ple]

simple

1. inflection of simplu:
   1. feminine plural nominative
   2. feminine plural accusative
   3. neuter plural nominative
   4. neuter plural accusative

Borrowed from Latin simplex.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsimple/, [ˈsĩmple]

simple (plural simples)

1. simple (uncomplicated)

   Synonym: sencillo

   Antonyms: complicado, complejo

2. (before the noun) mere, ordinary

   Synonym: mero

   Soy un simple pescador. ― I'm just a fisherman.

3. simple, single (not divided into parts)

   Antonym: compuesto

4. simple-minded, stupid
5. insipid, flavorless

   Synonym: soso

6. (grammar) simple

• Chavacano: simple

simple m or f (plural simples)

1. simpleton, fool
2. (pharmacology, masculine only) simple

• más simple que el mecanismo de un botijo

• “simple” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

simple

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of simpel.