Noun: simple
| Singular | simple |
| Plural | simples |
Sample Sentences
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Dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind. [c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, […] [T]he Merrie Wiues of Windsor. […] (First Quarto), London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for Arthur Ihonson, […], published 1602, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:]
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I know there are some simples, which in operation are moistening and some drying. [1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 37, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:]
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[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. [a. 1700 (date written), William Temple, “Of Health and Long-life”, in Miscellanea. The Third Part. […], London: […] Jonathan Swift, […] Benjamin Tooke, […], published 1701, →OCLC, pages 183–184:]
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The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. [1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:]
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The venerable carryall, formerly brimming with all manner of esoteric pamphlets and witch's simples, now overflowed with a cascade of soft toys, juice bottles, tissues, linen books for infants, […] [2003, Dolores Stewart Riccio, Charmed Circle, Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 12:]
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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. [2021 September 14, Michael David Stevens, 10:41 from the start, in Do Chairs Exist?:]
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But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels [c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:]
Nouns inflected like simple
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *sem-
3. Proto-Indo-European *sm̥-der.
4. Latin sem-
5. Proto-Italic *-plosder.
6. Latin -plus
7. Latin simplusbor.
8. Old French simplebor.
9. Middle English symple
10. English simple
11. Inherited from Middle English symple, 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. See: Middle English Nouns '
symple', Middle English Nouns '
symple', Latin Nouns '
simplex'.