simplex
Having a single structureHaving a single structure; not composite or complex; undivided, unitary.
Meaning
7 senses(dated, not comparable)Having a single structure; not composite or complex; undivided, unitary.
(historical, not comparable)Of an eye: (supposedly) having pigment on only the posterior surface of the iris and not the anterior surface, and thus appearing blue; this was later found to be inaccurate, as eye colour is due to the amount of pigment in the anterior surface of the iris; also, of eye pigmentation: present only on the posterior surface of the iris; and of a person: having eyes with this form of pigmentation.
(not comparable)Of a circuit or device: involving signals which travel in one direction at a time; unidirectional.
(not comparable)Of a polyploid organism: having one dominant allele at a given locus on all homologous chromosomes.
(not comparable)Of a word: having no (derivational) affixes; simple, monomorphemic, uncompounded.
(not comparable)Of an apartment (or, sometimes, another type of property): having only one floor or storey; single-storey.
having only one part or element
(archaic, not comparable, obsolete)Synonym of heterozygous (“of an organism: having two different alleles in a given gene”).
Origin
The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin simplex (“plain, simple; single”). The firThe adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin simplex (“plain, simple; single”). The first part, sim-, comes from Proto-Indo-European *sem-, *sm̥- (“one; together”). The second part, -plex, may be from *pleḱ- (“to weave”).
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