Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word. Nominal

Correct — B. Nominal carries two everyday senses and both point the same way: in name only, as in a nominal head of state, and very small or token, as in a nominal fee.

Either way the word says slight, not real in substance. Reverse that and you get significant — large or weighty enough to matter.

Hold the pair as a nominal fee against a significant fee: option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Nasty — Nasty means unpleasant or spiteful, so its opposite runs on the pleasantness axis — pleasant, kind. Nominal says nothing about how agreeable a thing is.
• (c)
  Sound — Sound means healthy, solid or well-founded, and its opposite is unsound or faulty. That is a judgement of reliability, not of size or substance.
• (d)
  Constant — Constant means unchanging or continuous, so its opposite is variable or intermittent. Nominal measures magnitude, not steadiness.

An antonym item is decided by the axis the given word sits on, not by whether a candidate sounds negative.

Name what nominal measures before looking at the options. It measures substance — how much is really there, whether in money (a nominal charge) or in authority (a nominal ruler).

The answer must reverse that same measure, and significant does: enough weight or size to be noticed.

Nasty, sound and constant each reverse a different property, which is why they read as perfectly good English and still lose.

Key facts

• Nominal means existing in name only, as in a nominal head of state.
• Nominal also means very small or token, as in a nominal fee.
• Significant means large or important enough to deserve attention.
• In economics, nominal value is the unadjusted figure and real value is the inflation-adjusted one.

Common traps

• Picking nasty because nominal sounds faintly negative
• Reading nominal as the grammar term, from nominal and verbal, and losing the everyday sense

No directly related past PYQ was found.