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Simplify vs Paraphrase - What's the difference?

simplify | paraphrase |

As verbs the difference between simplify and paraphrase

is that simplify is to make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand while paraphrase is to restate something as, or to compose a paraphrase.

As a noun paraphrase is

a restatement of a text in different words, often to clarify meaning.

simplify

English

Verb

(en-verb)
  • To make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand.
  • To become simpler.
  • * 2006 , Karen Oslund, “Reading Backwards: Language Politics and Cultural Identity in Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia”, in David L. Hoyt and Karen Oslund (editors), The Study of Language and the Politics of Community in Global Context , Lexington Books, ISBN 978-0-7391-0955-7, page 126:
  • Thus, throughout the nineteenth century, linguists generally held that more grammatically complex languages were older and that languages tended to simplify over time—the four grammatical cases of German as contrasted with the seven of Latin, for example.

    Derived terms

    * oversimplify * simplification * simplifier English ergative verbs

    paraphrase

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A restatement of a text in different words, often to clarify meaning.
  • Derived terms

    * paraphrastic * paraphrastical * paraphrastically

    See also

    * Etymology of translation * metaphrase

    Verb

    (paraphras)
  • To restate something as, or to compose a paraphrase.