SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 4 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Identify from the given options the word which is similar in meaning to the following word. Munificent

(a)Miserly
(b)Malicious
(c)Underappreciated
(d)Magnanimous

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Munificent means giving generously and on a large scale, from Latin munus ('gift') plus facere ('to make').

Option (d), magnanimous, is the one word here built on the same idea of open-handedness — magnus ('great') plus animus ('spirit'), a person large enough in spirit to give and to forgive.

The two are not interchangeable everywhere: munificent measures the gift, magnanimous the temper. On this set they are the nearest pair by a wide margin.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Miserly — Miserly means unwilling to spend or give — the opposite of munificent. In a synonym item the antonym is the most inviting wrong answer because it shares the topic, giving, without sharing the direction.
(b)
Malicious — Malicious means intending to do harm, from Latin malus, 'bad'. It shares nothing with munificent except the opening m.
(c)
Underappreciated — Underappreciated means not valued as much as deserved. It describes how a person is regarded by others, whereas munificent describes what that person gives.

Concept

Synonym items are decided by the core sense of a word, not by its full range. Munificent belongs to a family of words for generosity — bountiful, liberal, lavish, magnanimous — and the task is to find the option nearest that core, not a perfect equivalent.

The Latin does the work. munus is a gift, so munificent is literally gift-making. magnanimus is great-souled, so magnanimous is generous in spirit, a sense that stretches to forgiving a rival as well as to giving money.

Expect the answer to be the closest option rather than an exact match. Munificent is usually said of gifts and donors; magnanimous is usually said of conduct towards someone weaker or defeated.

Key facts

Munificent means extremely generous in giving, from Latin munus, a gift.
Magnanimous means generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival or a weaker person.
Miserly is the antonym of munificent.
Malicious means intending to do harm, from Latin malus, bad.

Study next

The generosity word family: benevolent, bountiful, philanthropicLatin roots munus, magnus and animusSynonym sets that plant the antonym as a distractor

Common traps

Picking Miserly because it is the word most strongly associated with munificent — association is not synonymy.
Choosing by first letter when three options begin with m.
Reading Underappreciated as 'not given enough', which is not what it means.

The stem 'Identify from the given options the word which is similar in meaning to the following word' hands you a bare word with no sentence, so context cannot help — the root and the word class are all you have.

It set Equivocal → Ambiguous at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, EC Q19, and Morbid → Gloomy at 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, EC Q15.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.