simple

adj

1. Uncomplicated; lacking complexity; taken by itself, with nothing added.

   “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?”

   “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.”

   “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).”

2. Easy; not difficult.

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

   “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.”

3. Without ornamentation; plain.
4. Free from duplicity; guileless, innocent, straightforward.

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

   “Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue?”

   “Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. The vision of genius comes by renouncing the too officious activity of the understanding, and giving leave and amplest privilege to the spontaneous sentiment.”

5. Undistinguished in social condition; of no special rank.

   “Garak: Who would want to kill me, a simple tailor? / Odo: A simple tailor? A simple tailor who used to be an agent of the Obsidian Order!”

6. (archaic)Trivial; insignificant.

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

7. (colloquial, euphemistic)Feeble-minded; foolish.
8. Structurally uncomplicated.
9. (broadly)Structurally uncomplicated.
10. (broadly)Structurally uncomplicated.
11. (broadly)Structurally uncomplicated.
12. (broadly, universal)Structurally uncomplicated.
13. (broadly)Structurally uncomplicated.
14. Structurally uncomplicated.
15. Structurally uncomplicated.
16. Structurally uncomplicated.
17. Structurally uncomplicated.

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

18. Structurally uncomplicated.

    “a simple ascidian”

19. Structurally uncomplicated.
20. (obsolete)Mere; not other than; being only.

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

    “"Yes; as well versed in the art of intrigue, I should think, as if she had been brought up in attendance in a court, instead of being a simple butler's daughter, in a gloomy old pile like this!"”

noun

1. A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one plant.

   “Dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.”

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

   “[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.”

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

   “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, […]”

2. (broadly, obsolete)A physician.
3. A simple or atomic proposition.

   “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.”

4. (obsolete)Something not mixed or compounded.

   “But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels”

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

verb

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