▪ I. simpler1 Now arch.
(ˈsɪmplə(r))
[f. simple B. 6 + -er.]
One who collects or studies simples; a herbalist, a simplist.
| 1591 Greene Farewell to Folly Wks. (Grosart) IX. 289 Menecas the Macedonian was a very good simpler. 1601 Holland Pliny xxi. xx. II. 105, I canot but detect the knauery of these Harbarists and simplers. 1656 W. Cole Art of Simpling Pref. p. i, What a rare happiness was it for Matthiolus that famous Simpler, to live in those dayes. 1720 De Foe Serious Refl. ii. 33 Your Simplers have had some disputes about the sorts of it. 1774 Westm. Mag. II. 137 This Simpler..might..stand the foremost amongst his own vegetative tribes. 1830 James Darnley xxxvii, Bradford had gone to seek remedies from a simpler at Boulogne. 1866 Treas. Bot. 35/1 Its properties are..slightly tonic; hence it comes within the province of the ‘simpler’. |
b. simpler's joy, the plant vervain.
| 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 327 Simpler's Joy, Verbena. 1863 Prior Plant-n., Simpler's joy, from the good sale they had for so highly esteemed a plant, Verbena officinalis. |
▪ II. † simpler2 Cant. Obs.
[f. simple a.]
(See quot. 1592.)
| 1592 Greene Conny Catch. Wks. (Grosart) X. 39 They haue sundry praies that they cal simplers which are men fondly and wantonly geuen, whom for a penaltie of their lust, they fleece of al that euer they haue. 1602 Rowlands Greenes Ghost (1860) 43 She returneth with two or three fleshly minded Rabbets or Simplers. |