easy

easy (ēʹzē) adjective

easier, easiest

idiom.

[Middle English esi, from Old French aaisie past participle of aaisier, to put at ease : a-, to (from Latin ad-, ad-) + aise, ease. See ease.]

easʹiness noun

Synonyms: easy, simple, facile, effortless, smooth, light. These adjectives mean requiring little effort or posing little if any difficulty. Easy applies both to tasks that require little effort and to persons who are not demanding: "The diagnosis of disease is often easy, often difficult, and often impossible" (Peter M. Latham). Not wanting to be called an easy marker, the teacher graded the essays severely. Simple implies lack of complexity that facilitates understanding or performance: a simple game; a simple problem; "the faculty . . . of reducing his thought on any subject to the simplest and plainest terms possible" (Baron Charnwood). Facile stresses readiness and fluency (a facile speaker); often, though, the word has unfavorable connotations, as of lack of care, glibness or insincerity, or superficiality: The explanation is too facile for such a complex phenomenon. Effortless refers to performance in which the application of great strength or skill makes the execution seem easy: a skater performing an effortless double axel; wrote effortless prose. Smooth suggests freedom from hindrances or difficulties that impede progress: The path of the bill through the legislature was smooth and orderly. Light refers to tasks or impositions that involve no taxing burdens or responsibilities: light duties; light taxes.