simple

• 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...
• 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). - 2006, M. Eto et...

Synonyms: onefold austere bare bare-bones bargain basic cheap default discreet economy elemental elementary essential foundational fundamental incomplex light modest no-frills plain pure restrained rudimentary run-of-the-mill

Antonyms: subtle

• 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...
• 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...

Synonyms: basic trivial as a duck takes to water easy easy as 123 easy as ABC easy as cake easy as pie easy as falling off a log easy as rolling off a log easy as toffee easy-breezy easy peasy easy peasy Japanesey easy peasy lemon squeezy eath effortless facile idiotproof light like a duck takes to water like falling off a log like riding a bike like robbing a baby

Antonyms: challenging hard arduous nasty difficult effortful rough rocky thistly tough uneath unsimple

Synonyms: austere plain bare chaste inornate modest quiet severe simple spartan unadorned unembellished unextravagant unornamented undecked ungarnished untrimmed unvarnished

Antonyms: flashy tinselly bedizened blatant blingish brash campy catchpenny chichi chintzy corny crass crude flaunting florid flossy froufrou garish gauche gaudy gay glaring gross gussied up

• Full many fine men go upon my score, as simple as I stand here, and I trust them. - 1605, Iohn Marston [i.e., John Marston], The Dutch Courtezan. […], London: […] T[homas] P[urfoot] for Iohn Hodgets, […], →OCLC, (please...
• Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue? - 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas...
• 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...

Synonyms: sincere unaffected earnest fair dinkum forthright upfront foursquare frank genuine honest legitimate on the level on the up-and-up square straight straight dinkum straightforward true truthful trustworthy up front veracious veridical artless

Antonyms: crafty guileful astute artful cautelous cunning devious diabolical foxlike foxy frood shrewd slim sly subtle tricksy tricky vulpine wily

• 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! - 1995 April 24, Improbable Cause (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), season 3, number...

Synonyms: common low-born ordinary vulgar

Antonyms: eminent gentle notable highborn well-born

• ‘That was a symple cause,’ seyde Sir Trystram, ‘for to sle a good knyght for seyynge well by his maystir.’ - 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum LV”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book X (in Middle English),...

Synonyms: inconsequential base contemptible floccinaucinihilipilificatious foolish for the birds futile frivolous idle ignorable immaterial inconsiderable indifferent insignificant like a fart in a windstorm meager mean minor miserable negligible nothingburger nondescript null paltry

Antonyms: significant big central consequential critical crucial epochful essential extraordinary fateful fatefraught fatesome heavy pivotal high on the totem pole historic innegligible key life-or-death meaningful necessary noted noticeable observable

Synonyms: dim-witted unwise asinine balmy barmy bedaft loony daft derpy dim-headed dopey dull-headed dull-witted dumb duncical fatuous fuzzy-headed fuzzy-minded gauvison goofy idiotic idle insipient mookish

Antonyms: astute quick-witted clairvoyant deep frood grounded judicious oracular perspicacious politic profound prudent reasonable sagacious sage sapient sensible wise witful

Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

Antonyms: complex compound complicated

1. (chemistry, pharmacology) Consisting of one single substance; uncompounded.

2. (algebra, loosely, of an algebraic structure) Being non-trivial, and admitting no proper non-trivial quotients.

   (group theory, of a group) Being non-trivial, and having no proper non-trivial normal subgroups (equivalently, no proper non-trivial quotient groups).

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

3. (algebra, loosely, of an algebraic structure) Being non-trivial, and admitting no proper non-trivial quotients.

   (module theory, of a module) Being non-trivial, and having no proper non-trivial submodules (equivalently, no proper non-trivial quotient modules).

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

4. (algebra, loosely, of an algebraic structure) Being non-trivial, and admitting no proper non-trivial quotients.

   (ring theory, of a ring) Being non-zero, and having no proper non-zero two-sided ideals (equivalently, no proper non-trivial quotient rings). For commutative rings, this definition coincides with that of a field.

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

5. (algebra, loosely, of an algebraic structure) Being non-trivial, and admitting no proper non-trivial quotients.

   (universal algebra, of an algebraic structure) Containing more than one element, and such that the only congruences on the structure are the diagonal relation (the equivalence relation a≡b⟺a=b) and the universal relation (the equivalence relation such that a≡b for all a,b). Equivalently, containing more than one element and having no proper non-trivial quotient algebras.

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

6. (algebra, loosely, of an algebraic structure) Being non-trivial, and admitting no proper non-trivial quotients.

   (category theory, of an object in a category with a terminal object) Being non-isomorphic to the terminal object, and such that its only quotient objects (up to isomorphism) are the terminal object and itself.

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

7. (algebra, of a Lie algebra) Being non-abelian and having no proper non-zero ideals. (Note that this is non-equivalent to the usual algebra sense; in particular, the abelian Lie algebra of dimension 1 over any given field is non-trivial and has no proper non-zero ideals, but is by convention not considered simple.)

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

8. (mathematics, real analysis, measure theory, of a real-valued function) Equal to a finite linear combination of indicator functions on measurable sets.

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

9. (botany) Not compound, but possibly lobed.

   Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

   Antonyms: complex compound complicated

10. Using steam only once in its cylinders, in contrast to a compound engine, where steam is used more than once in high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders. (of a steam engine)

    • Chesapeake & Ohio turned to simple articulateds, for instance, simply because its Alleghany tunnels would not accommodate the low-pressure forward cylinders of larger compounds. - 1959, David P. Morgan, editor, Steam's...

    Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

    Antonyms: complex compound complicated

11. (zoology) Consisting of a single individual or zooid; not compound.

    • a simple ascidian

    Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

    Antonyms: complex compound complicated

12. (mineralogy) Homogenous.

    Synonyms: basic plain uncomplex uncomplicated

    Antonyms: complex compound complicated

• A medicine […] whose simple touch / Is powerful to araise King Pepin. - c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
• "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!" - 1859, Ned Buntline,...

Synonyms: alone mere only very bare just simple

• 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]...
• 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...
• [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...

• 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...

• 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....