keep it short and simple in English

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{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keep it simple, stupid",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KISS",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "keep it short and simple",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              0,
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          ],
          "ref": "1938 December 2, “Keep It Short and Simple”, in The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, page 20:",
          "text": "Keep It Short and Simple ... And the most effective way of making the educating job easier is to make the charter simple, readable and as brief as possible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Brevity and simplicity should be key; don't overcomplicate something."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_it_short_and_simple-en-phrase-jlpyR8Vd",
      "links": [
        [
          "Brevity",
          "brevity"
        ],
        [
          "simplicity",
          "simplicity"
        ],
        [
          "overcomplicate",
          "overcomplicate"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep it short and simple"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keep it simple, stupid",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KISS",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "keep it short and simple",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              0,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1938 December 2, “Keep It Short and Simple”, in The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, page 20:",
          "text": "Keep It Short and Simple ... And the most effective way of making the educating job easier is to make the charter simple, readable and as brief as possible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Brevity and simplicity should be key; don't overcomplicate something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Brevity",
          "brevity"
        ],
        [
          "simplicity",
          "simplicity"
        ],
        [
          "overcomplicate",
          "overcomplicate"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep it short and simple"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-10-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (1a05e46 and e3d6d4e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"keep it short and simple" meaning in English

Phrase