How to Use simpleton in a Sentence

simpleton

noun
Definition of simpletonnext
Synonyms for simpletonnext
  • The instructions were so complicated I felt like a complete simpleton.
  • The door burst open and the basement filled with the sound of simpleton strumming as a herd of people tried to squeeze their way through the narrow frame.
    — Chicago Tribune, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2018
  • Just because your simpleton that can only carry drinks and food to a table does not mean the rest of us need to risk a virus.
    — Ann Norman, cleveland, 20 Nov. 2020
  • How much, if at all, Kevin knows of what the two simpletons were up to, is left enigmatically open.
    — Maggie Lee, chicagotribune.com, 8 Feb. 2018
  • It is sometimes used as a synonym for uncouth or a simpleton.
    — David Luhnow and Juan Montes, WSJ, 19 Oct. 2021
  • Life is pitiless and strange; only simpletons look for neat meanings.
    — Dwight Garner, New York Times, 21 June 2017
  • Todd was always an only-half-knowable grotesque, one of those Jim Thompson-y fellas who could be a lucky simpleton or an evil genius.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Even petting a dog, resting in bed or stopping to smell the flowers seems to test the skills of Torabi’s inexperienced simpletons.
    — David Pagel, Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2019
  • The tale is bookended by the 15-year-old Kafka and the elderly Nakata, a simpleton who communicates with cats.
    — Debra Kamin, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Mar. 2020
  • What's notable here is the start of Nate and Jenny's endless courtship (who doesn't root for two good-hearted simpletons?) and the touching, poignant conversation between Allison and Rufus.
    — Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 19 Sep. 2018
  • There can’t be anything more transparent than Manfred’s nail-pounding support for the beleaguered A’s in their battle against the simpleton officials of Oakland.
    — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Oct. 2021
  • Tilson Thomas did, however, end with the final version’s forest scene, in which the violent crowd sides with an imposter claiming to be Dimitri, and the last word is given to the simpleton prophesizing a future of sorrow for the Russian people.
    — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 19 June 2018
  • In the latter, good generally wins out, however messily: Dragons get slain, witches are shoved into ovens, simpletons land fortunes, and so on.
    — Bruce Handy, The Atlantic, 29 Aug. 2019
  • But in that time the company cycled through four different consumer robot concepts in the hopes of shaping the future of the home, moving beyond simpleton Roombas to truly intelligent machines.
    — Matt Simon, WIRED, 1 May 2018
  • The benefit of buying dirt-cheap goods from China is a comparative-advantage argument that even we economic simpletons can grasp.
    — WSJ, 11 July 2018
  • Yes, the series began as a beautiful-but-underwhelming PS4 launch game, seemingly tuned for children and comparable simpletons.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 14 June 2017
  • Too often in books and popular culture, poor country people are portrayed as either ugly redneck caricatures or naive, good-natured simpletons.
    — Dmitry Samarov, Chicago Reader, 12 July 2017
  • Some historians emphasize the intellectual prowess of fascist dictators to imply that Trump is a simpleton or a moron.
    — Federico Finchelstein, The New Republic, 20 Aug. 2020
  • Roman Zhurbin, always superb in character roles, was Simone; Craig Salstein, who often exaggerates his facial expressions, but not here, was the adorably irrepressible simpleton suitor.
    — Alastair MacAulay, New York Times, 25 May 2016
  • Soon voice-command technology reached the public, ushering in our current era of unreliable computer interlocutors given to unforced errors: half-comical, half-pitiful simpletons, whose fate in life is to be taunted by eleven-year-olds.
    — Junot Díaz, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Korean media has long perpetuated the stereotype of the migrant worker as a simpleton with broken language and exaggerated mannerisms, and Saeji said Ali doesn’t completely transcend that.
    — NBC News, 8 Oct. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'simpleton.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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