simplex

Meaning

Adj

1. (dated, not-comparable) Having a single structure; not composite or complex; undivided, unitary.
2. (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.
3. (not-comparable) Of a circuit or device: involving signals which travel in one direction at a time; unidirectional.
4. (not-comparable) Of a polyploid organism: having one dominant allele at a given locus on all homologous chromosomes.
5. (archaic, not-comparable, obsolete) Synonym of heterozygous (“of an organism: having two different alleles in a given gene”).
6. (not-comparable) Of a word: having no (derivational) affixes; simple, monomorphemic, uncompounded.
7. (not-comparable) Of an apartment (or, sometimes, another type of property): having only one floor or storey; single-storey.

Noun

1. A generalization of a triangle or tetrahedron to an arbitrary dimension, the generalization being the simplest possible convex polytope for a given dimension; more accurately, the convex hull of n+1 affinely independent points in n-dimensional space.
2. A word which is not compound and contains no derivational affixes (inflectional affixes are usually disregarded); a monomorphemic word.
3. (archaic) In full simplex sentence: in transformational grammar: a simple sentence which is the product of a few transformations; a kernel sentence.
4. An apartment (or, sometimes, another type of property) having only one floor or storey; a single-storey property.

Opposite of

complex, duplex, bidirectional, polymorphemic

Synonyms

one-way

single

simple

plain

monadic

naive

one-piece

pure

simple-minded

simplicity

slow-witted

sober

unary

underived

unidirectional

unsophisticated

simple form

single-cylinder

unidirection

model experiment

simulation experiment

single channel

one-cylinder

basic

mockup experiment

common

crude

lowly

Translations

Simplex

símplex

simplexe

basit

tek yönlü

simple

simple

unidirectionnel

simplex

semplice

unidirezionale

unidirectioneel

eenrichtings-

simplèx

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈsɪmplɛks/

Etymology

The 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”).
The noun is derived from the adjective. The plural forms simplices and simplicia are learned borrowings from Latin simplicēs (masculine or feminine) and simplicia (neuter), respectively plural forms of simplex.
Noun sense 1 (“generalization of a triangle or tetrahedron to an arbitrary dimension”) was apparently coined by the Dutch mathematician Pieter Hendrik Schoute (1846–1913) as a short version of Simplicissimum in Mehrdimensionale Geometrie (in German, 1902). (In his pioneering works on algebraic topology, the French mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) had previously introduced the concept, but not the actual term simplex.)