simplex

CEFRC2

/ˈsɪmplɛks/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Having only one part or level.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Of a circuit or device: involving signals which travel in one direction at a time; unidirectional.

Examples

  • Simplex means consisting of a single part or a single element.

  • The communication system uses a simplex mode for the messages.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
1
Synonyms
2

Also pronounced

  • /ˈsɪmˌplɛks/
  • /ˈsɪmpləˌsiz/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Of an eye: (supposedly) having pigment on only the posterior surface of the iris and not the anterior surface, and thus appearing blue; this was later found to be inaccurate, as eye colour is due to the amount of pigment in the anterior surface of the iris; a...

  2. Having a single structure; not composite or complex; undivided, unitary.

  3. Of a polyploid organism: having one dominant allele at a given locus on all homologous chromosomes.

More examples

In context

  • The radio system operates in a simplex communication mode.

  • The word weak is a simplex. Its derivative weaken is not.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

In biology, a blank virus has only one strand of genetic material.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin simplex (“plain, simple; single”). The first part, sim-, comes from Proto-Indo-European *sem-, *sm̥- (“one; together”). The second part, -plex, may be from *pleḱ- (“to weave”). The noun is derived from the adjective. The plural forms simplices and simplicia are learned borrowings from Latin simplicēs (masculine or feminine) and simplicia (neuter), respectively plural forms of simplex. Noun sense 1 (“generalization of a triangle or tetrahedron to an arbitrary dimension”) was apparently coined by the Dutch mathematician Pieter Hendrik Schoute (1846–1913) as a short version of Simplicissimum in Mehrdimensionale Geometrie (in German, 1902). (In hi...