Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the underlined word. The long-standing feud between the two villages was settled due to the intervention of the two chiefs.
- (a)Harmony
- (b)Humility
- (c)Honesty
- (d)Humble
Answer
Why
Correct — A. A feud is a long, bitter quarrel between two parties, so its opposite has to name the state those parties would be in without the quarrel.
Harmony does exactly that: peaceful agreement between people or groups. The sentence hands you the direction too — the feud was settled, and what a settlement produces is harmony.
The other three options name qualities that belong to one person, and a personal quality cannot reverse a relation running between two villages.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)Humility — Humility is the opposite of pride or arrogance. It is a virtue held by an individual, not a state shared between two villages, so it cannot reverse feud.
- (c)Honesty — Honesty opposes deceit. A feud is not a lie, and two villages can be scrupulously honest with each other while the quarrel goes on.
- (d)Humble — Humble is an adjective while feud is a noun, so it fails the part-of-speech test before meaning is even considered. Its sense is wrong for the same reason humility is.
Concept
Two tests settle most antonym items, and this one needs both.
Part of speech first: feud is a noun, so the answer must be a noun. That alone removes humble.
Relation or quality second: feud describes something running between two parties, so its opposite must also be a relation. Harmony, concord and amity are relations. Humility and honesty are qualities that a single person has.
All four options begin with H, so the shape of the words gives you nothing and the sense has to decide.
The underlined word is feud, not settled and not intervention.
Candidates who answer the sentence rather than the word tend to look for something meaning reconciliation or mediation, and then cannot find it among the options.
Key facts
- Feud: a prolonged and bitter quarrel between two people, families or groups.
- Harmony: agreement and peaceful coexistence, used of the relation between parties.
- Humble is the adjective and humility the noun of the same idea.
Study next
Common traps
- Picking humility because settling a quarrel usually calls for humility, when the question asks for the opposite of feud and not for its cure.
- Overlooking that humble is an adjective while the underlined word is a noun.
The underlined-word antonym format is used again at 17 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.12, where the cue is chronic, and at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.12, where it is large.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.