simpleness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of complication

Nouns

1. simpleness, classicism; purity, homogeneity; cleanness.

2. simplicity, artlessness, innocence; plainness, homeliness; undress; chastity, severity; elegance. See credulity.

Verbs — simplify; clear, purify, clean; disentangle (see disjunction); come down to earth; call a spade a spade, lay on the line.

Adjectives

1. simple, homogeneous, single, pure, clear, sheer, neat, mere; bare, austere; classic; unmixed, uncomplex; simplistic, oversimplified; elementary; unadulterated, unsophisticated, unalloyed; pure and simple; free from, exempt from; exclusive; no-frills, severe, chaste; naive.

2. plain, homely, homespun; Anglo-Saxon; dry, unvaried, monotonous; earthy; down-to-earth; ordinary; bald, flat; dull, artless, ingenuous, unaffected, free from affectation or ornament; chaste, severe; unadorned, unornamented, ungarnished, unvarnished, unarranged, untrimmed. Informal, [plain] vanilla. Slang, down-home, no-frills, raw.

3. outspoken, blunt, direct, forthright, straight from the shoulder, down to brass tacks; in plain words, in plain English.

Adverbs — simply, purely; solely, only; unadornedly, in the raw; in plain terms, words, English, etc., in words of one syllable, in no uncertain terms; bluntly, point-blank, right out, straight. Informal, flat-out.

Phrases — less is more.

Quotations — Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler (Albert Einstein), Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity (Plato), Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify (Henry David Thoreau).

Antonyms, see ornament, disorder, affectation, loquacity.

II

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Lack of ostentation or pretension: modesty, plainness, simplicity, unassumingness, unosten-tatiousness, unpretentiousness. See PLAIN.