Definition of "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 Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

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.

1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 253

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 Press, page 167

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, […], (please specify the page)

Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue?

1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], stanza XXXVI

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.

1838 July 24, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Literary Ethics. An Oration Delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838”, in J[ames] E[lliot] Cabot, editor, Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (Emerson’s Complete Works; I), Riverside edition, London: The Waverley Book Company, published 1883, page 160

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 20 (Science Fiction), Paramount Domestic Television

‘That was a symple cause,’ seyde Sir Trystram, ‘for to sle a good knyght for seyynge well by his maystir.’(please add an English translation of this quotation)]

, book X (in Middle English), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889,

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 […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]

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 Blount […]

[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, William Temple, “Of Health and Long-life”, in Miscellanea. The Third Part. [...], London: […] Jonathan Swift, […] Benjamin Tooke, […], published 1701, pages 183–184

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

1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]

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, […]

2003, Dolores Stewart Riccio, Charmed Circle, Kensington Books, page 12

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. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]