Synonyms Questions and Answers

Answer: C

MASTICATE means Chew.

To masticate is to chew food, grinding it with the teeth before swallowing. The word survives in biology, where mastication is the first stage of digestion.

Devour means to eat hungrily and quickly, swallow is the step after chewing, and drink applies to liquids, so none of them means masticate.

Mastication breaks food into smaller pieces and mixes it with saliva, which begins the digestion of starch.

Answer: C

IMBECILE is closest in meaning to Foolish.

As an adjective, imbecile means stupid or foolish, a person or act lacking sense. Foolish is the nearest of the options.

Sane means of sound mind and astute means shrewd, so both point the other way. Aid means help and has no connection with the word.

Answer: D

CANDOR is closest in meaning to Truthfulness.

Candor (candour) is the quality of being open and honest in speech, saying what one really thinks. Truthfulness is the nearest of the options.

Falsifier is the opposite, a person who misrepresents the truth. Generous describes giving freely and rough describes harshness of surface or manner, neither of which is the same as honesty.

Answer: B

The word closest in meaning to perfidy is Treachery.

Perfidy means deliberate breach of faith or trust, betrayal of someone who relied on you. It comes from the Latin perfidia, from per fidem, 'through (that is, violating) faith'. Treachery carries exactly that sense of betrayal.

Confidence (trust placed in someone) is close to its opposite, the thing perfidy breaks. Boldness is daring, which has nothing to do with loyalty, and clarify is a verb meaning to make clear, unrelated in sense and not even the same part of speech.

Answer: D

The word closest in meaning to ubiquitous is Omnipresent.

Ubiquitous means present, or seeming to be present, everywhere at the same time, as in 'Smartphones have become ubiquitous'. It comes from the Latin ubique, 'everywhere'. Omnipresent means the same: present in all places.

Rare and scarce are its opposites, describing something seldom found. Unique means the only one of its kind, which is also the reverse of something found everywhere.

Answer: C

The synonym of enemy is foe.

An enemy is a person who is hostile to another or opposes them, and foe is a formal or literary word for the same thing. Both can refer to a rival in war or in everyday life.

Friend is the antonym, and relative means a member of the family. Since foe fits, "None of these" is wrong.

Answer: A

The synonym of pain is agony.

Pain is physical or mental suffering, and agony is extreme pain. The two are close in meaning, with agony the stronger word.

Comfort is the opposite of pain, insolent means rude or disrespectful, and recollect means to remember, so none of them is a synonym.

Answer: D

The synonym of ill is sick.

Someone who is ill is unwell, in poor health, and sick is the common word for the same condition: an ill child, a sick child.

Shy describes timidity, mad describes insanity or anger, and patient means calm and tolerant or a person under medical care, so none is a match.

Answer: D

The synonym of confuse is puzzle.

To confuse someone is to leave them unable to think clearly or understand, and to puzzle them is to leave them baffled. Both are verbs of the same meaning.

Diffuse means to spread out, profuse means abundant, and easy means not difficult. The first two look like confuse but mean something else.

Answer: B

The nearest meaning of 'fabulous' is incredible.

The throne's 'fabulous jewellery' is jewellery so rich that it is hard to believe, and 'incredible' carries that sense.

'Actual' and 'real' mean the opposite of the fanciful sense of 'fabulous', and 'solid' describes a material, not the wonder of the jewellery.