Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the word in brackets to fill in the blank. She has _______ (witty) remarks about everything.

Correct — B. Witty means amusingly clever, so its opposite has to cancel the amusing part of that meaning.

Unamusing does exactly that, by negating amusing with the prefix un-. Read the completed sentence — she has unamusing remarks about everything — and it reverses the original sense while staying natural → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  whimsical — Whimsical means playfully fanciful. That sits on the same side of the meaning as witty, so it is a near synonym rather than an opposite.
• (c)
  woeful — Woeful means full of sorrow, or very poor in quality. It opposes cheerful, and a remark can be woeful and still be clever.
• (d)
  sorry — Sorry means regretful, or in a wretched state. Neither sense denies the amusing cleverness that witty describes.

An antonym item asks you to reverse the particular sense a word carries, and witty carries two components at once: clever and amusing.

The keyed option works on the second component with a negating prefix, un- attached to amusing. That is the cleanest kind of antonym, because it denies the word itself instead of moving to a different area of meaning.

The wrong options move sideways. Whimsical, woeful and sorry each describe a mood or a quality, but none of them is the denial of amusing wit.

Key facts

• Witty means clever in an amusing way.
• The prefix un- forms a direct antonym by negation, turning amusing into unamusing.
• Whimsical means playfully fanciful, which is close to witty rather than opposed to it.

Common traps

• Picking woeful or sorry because they feel negative, when negative is not the same as opposite.
• Treating whimsical as an opposite because it sounds unserious.

No directly related past PYQ was found.