Simple Meaning
/ˈsɪm.pəl/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjUncomplicated; lacking complexity; taken by itself, with nothing added.
adjEasy; not difficult.
Sentence Examples
I can't tell her now. It's not that simple anymore.
Except that here, it's not so simple.
Aspirin is a simple but highly effective treatment.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The instructions were so ____ that even a child could follow them.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The instructions were very ____ and easy for anyone to follow.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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?"
— 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 253:
"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)."
— 2006, M. Eto et al., “Solitons in Supersymmetric Gauge Theories”, in Particles, Strings and Cosmology, →ISBN, page 266:
"There is no simple way to define precisely a complex arrangement of parts, however homely the object may appear to be."
— 2001, Sydney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 167:
"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."
— 2021, Luis Atencio, The Joy of JavaScript, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 104:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The instructions were so ____ that even a child could follow them.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The instructions were very ____ and easy for anyone to follow.