  We derive new simple approximations for quintessence in a spatially
homogeneous, isotropic and flat spacetime. The approximations are typically an
order of magnitude more accurate than anything available in the literature,
which from an observational perspective makes numerical calculations
superfluous. For example, our tracking quintessence approximation, with one
less parameter than CPL and a comparably simple expression, yields a $0.1\%$
maximum relative error of $H(z)/H_0$ for the inverse power law scalar field
potential. We situate the new results in a broader dark energy context, where
the present parametrized deviations from $\Lambda$CDM offer simple alternatives
to the CPL parametrization, useful for observations at increasingly large
redshifts.
