Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word. Appreciate

Correct — B. Appreciate and depreciate are built on the same Latin root *pretium*, price. The prefix does the work: ad- raises the valuing, de- lowers it.

That makes them opposites in both of appreciate's working senses. To appreciate a thing is to value it highly; to depreciate it is to belittle it. An asset that appreciates rises in value; one that depreciates falls.

No other word in the list reverses either sense, so option (b) is the antonym.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Acknowledge — Acknowledge means to admit or recognise something. It sits close to one sense of appreciate — I appreciate that this is hard — so it is a near-synonym, not an opposite.
• (c)
  Depict — Depict means to portray something in a picture or in words. It shares only the de- opening with the answer and has nothing to do with value or regard.
• (d)
  Esteem — Esteem means to regard highly, which is what appreciate means. It is the planted synonym, and it catches anyone who read the stem as SYNONYM.

Appreciate carries two senses that a candidate needs to hold at once.

In ordinary use it means to value, enjoy or be grateful for something, and its opposites are words of belittling — depreciate, disparage, denigrate.

In money talk it means to rise in value, and its opposite is the fall in value that a currency or a machine undergoes: depreciation.

Depreciate answers both senses at once, which is why it beats every other option here rather than merely being acceptable.

Key facts

• Appreciate means to value or be grateful for something, and also, of an asset or a currency, to rise in value.
• Depreciate reverses both senses: to belittle or disparage, and to fall in value.
• Esteem means to regard highly, which makes it a synonym of appreciate rather than its antonym.
• Depict means to represent something in a picture or in words, and carries no sense of worth.

Common traps

• Choosing Esteem, a synonym of appreciate, after skimming past the capitalised ANTONYM
• Choosing Depict because it begins with de-, without checking what the word means

No directly related past PYQ was found.