simple

Meanings

Adjective

• Uncomplicated; taken by itself, with nothing added.
• Without ornamentation; plain.
• Free from duplicity; guileless, innocent, straightforward.
• Undistinguished in social condition; of no special rank.
• Trivial; insignificant.
• Feeble-minded; foolish.
• Structurally uncomplicated.
• Mere; not other than; being only.

Noun

• A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one plant.
• A physician.
• A simple or atomic proposition.
• Something not mixed or compounded.
• A drawloom.
• Part of the apparatus for raising the heddles of a drawloom.
• A feast which is not a double or a semidouble.

Verb

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

Related

Similar words

• onefold
• plain

Opposite words

• complex, compound, complicated
• subtle

Origin

• From Middle English symple, simple, from Old French and French simple, from Latin simplex (as opposed to duplex), from semel + plicō. See same and fold. Compare single, singular, simultaneous, etc.
• Partially displaced native English onefold.