simples

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of simple.

   The apothecary's shelves were lined with simples for every common ailment.

   Village women gathered simples from the meadows each summer.

   Note

   The herbal meaning dominates: these are remedies made from a single plant, as opposed to compounds mixed from several, and they are what an herbalist gathers. The same plural also serves narrower trades. In logic, simples are atomic propositions. In weaving, they are drawlooms or the apparatus that raises their heddles. Only context tells these apart, so a sentence about simples needs its field made clear.

2. 2
   interjectionslanghumorousUK

   Used to declare, often jokingly, that something is easy to do or understand.

   Cancel the old plan, sign up for the new one, and you save a fortune. Simples!

   Flip the switch, wait ten seconds, and the machine resets itself. Simples!

   Note

   A meerkat's catchphrase that escaped into British slang. It began as a humorous alteration of "Simple!", popularized as the broken-English tagline of a meerkat character in advertisements for the price comparison website comparethemarket.com. It works as a one-word sentence at the end of an argument, closing it with mock finality. The stray -s is the joke, so it suits banter and wry commentary, never a sincere explanation.

3. 3
   verbarchaic

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of simple. Archaic.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is archaic and means to gather medicinal herbs, so it shares its spelling with the plural noun for those herbs: she simples, and what she gathers are simples. It can stand alone (the monk simples in the garden) or take an object naming what is picked. Outside historical or deliberately old-fashioned writing, it is seldom met.

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