simplex

The story

1. Latin · learned borrowing fromsimplicēs
2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*sem-
3. Latin · learned borrowing fromsimplex“plain, simple; single”
4. English todaysimplex

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.)

Words from the same roots