- simple (adj.)
- early 13c., "humble, ignorant," from Old French simple, from Latin simplus "single," variant of simplex (see simplex). Sense evolved to "lowly, common" (late 13c.), then "mere, pure" (c.1300). As opposite of composite it dates from early 15c.; as opposite of complicated it dates from 1550s. Disparaging sense (mid-14c.) is from notion of "devoid of duplicity."