The first step we are going to take before knowing the meaning of the term easy is to discover its etymological origin. In this case, we can emphasize that it is a word that derives from Latin, exactly from “facilis”, which means “easy” and that comes from the verb “facere”, which is synonymous with “to make”.
Starting from this etymology we find other words such as feasible, ease or easily, for example.
This adjective is usually used to describe something that does not require practice, skill or effort .
For example: “Don't worry, it is very easy to install this device” , “My three-year-old son is learning to solve some easy calculations” , “With your instructions it was easy to find the restaurant” .
What is easy is simple or simple , unlike what is difficult or complex. The arithmetic operation 1 + 1 is easy: the vast majority of people discover without trying that the result is 2 . On the other hand, solving the operation 5 x 8 + (3/2) x 5 / 7 – 4 requires greater dedication and knowledge.
Many times the rating of easy depends on knowledge or experience. For a chef , making a pizza can be easy, since he knows what ingredients he needs, how to prepare the dough, how long to cook it, etc. On the other hand, to a 15-year-old teenager who lives with his parents and has never cooked, the same task may seem arduous.
In a similar sense, controlling the ball with your feet is an easy action for all professional soccer players . But for an individual who has never played soccer in his life, stopping a fast-moving ball and then passing it accurately to another subject is a challenge.
Manageable, accessible, simple, comfortable, feasible, possible, docile or tractable are other synonyms for easy. On the contrary, among its antonyms we find words such as complicated, hard, convoluted, improbable or difficult.
In the same way, we cannot ignore the book “Easy Reading”, written by Cristina Morales, which received the Herralde Novel Prize in 2018 and which is presented under the subtitle “Ni amo. Not even God. Nor husband. Not a match. Not even football.”
It is the story of four women (Marga, Patri, Nati and Ángels) who have a disability and who share a supervised apartment. Furthermore, they have in common that they have suffered different vicissitudes in life and that they have the strength and courage necessary to always face them. From this plot is how the author develops a novel that serves to raise awareness of current society, but is also a call to fight against machismo, capitalism, heteropatriarchy or prejudices, among other things.
The Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) also accepts a use of the adjective that is typical of machismo: it is said that an easy woman , in this framework, when she quickly accepts, without qualms or conditions, starting a relationship or being intimate with a man.