English
simple
Simple comes from Old French simple, from Latin simplex ‘simple, onefold’, from semel ‘once’ + plicō ‘to fold’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsimplex‘simple, onefold’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400simple‘innocent’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500symple‘guiltless’
- Englishearliest quotation 1470–1485simple
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsimplex‘simple, onefold’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400simple‘innocent’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500symple‘guiltless’
- Englishearliest quotation 1470–1485simple
Earliest quotation: 1470–1485, Capitulum LV: “‘That was a symple cause,’ seyde Sir Trystram, ‘for…”
The story
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’). Partially displaced native English onefold.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *pel-
film, felt, push, filter, powder, fold, pulse, pillow, repeal, complain, flaw, palate, expel, pollen, repel, palladium, propel, palpable, compulsive, pall, pelt, palatable, wallow, peloton, pollinate, polemic, palatal, pulver, palp, pillion, muffle, interpolate, peplum, tuple, apoplexy, 64 more
through Proto-Indo-European *sem- ‘together, one’
some, same, seem, single, similar, soft, sam, sincerely, simulation, resemblance, singular, resemble, anomaly, assemble, simultaneous, sincerity, semblance, simulate, anomalous, homeopathic, synapse, homology, assimilate, hyphen, insincere, synchronise, homolog, sempre, simulacrum, simile, 47 more
Today it means
adj Uncomplicated; lacking complexity; taken by itself, with nothing added.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin simplex / simple