Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word. Laudable

Correct — B. Laudable means deserving praise. It is built on Latin laudare, to praise, the root behind laud and laudatory.

Its opposite must mean deserving the reverse of praise — deserving censure or condemnation. That is deplorable, from Latin deplorare, to lament.

Commendable is the planted trap: it means what laudable means, so it is a synonym sitting in an antonym set. Humorous and severe are off the praise axis altogether.

The reversal of laudable is option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Humorous — Humorous means funny or amusing. Being praiseworthy and being funny are separate qualities, so humorous is neither a synonym nor an antonym of laudable.
• (c)
  Commendable — Commendable means deserving praise, which is the definition of laudable itself. It is the synonym planted in the set, not the reverse of the given word.
• (d)
  Severe — Severe means harsh, strict or very serious. It can describe a punishment or a winter, but it says nothing about whether something deserves praise.

Laud comes from Latin laudare, to praise, and gives English laud, laudable and laudatory.

Deplore comes from Latin deplorare, to lament or bewail, and gives deplore and deplorable — bad enough to be lamented or condemned.

Set those two roots against each other and the item resolves into praiseworthy against condemnable. Everything else in the set is measuring something other than praise, so it cannot be the reverse of laudable however negative it sounds.

Key facts

• Laudable means deserving praise and comes from Latin laudare, to praise.
• Deplorable means deserving strong condemnation, or very bad in quality.
• Commendable is a synonym of laudable, not its antonym.

Common traps

• Picking Commendable because it resembles laudable in register and shares its ending.
• Reading severe as the most negative word in the set and choosing it on tone rather than on meaning.

No directly related past PYQ was found.