Select the option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the given group of words. A person who likes to argue about anything

Correct — C. Contentious, of a person, means given to argument — quarrelsome, ready to dispute anything.

That is the prompt word for word: 'a person who likes to argue about anything'.

The word has a second use you will also meet — a contentious issue is one that provokes argument rather than one that makes it. Both senses come from the same root idea of contention → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Veracious — Veracious means truthful, habitually speaking the truth. It is the look-alike of voracious, and truthfulness is not argumentativeness.
• (b)
  Reticent — Reticent means reserved and unwilling to speak. That is the opposite temperament to someone who argues about anything.
• (d)
  Coward — A coward lacks courage. It is a noun about fear, and it describes what a person avoids doing rather than what they like doing.

One-word substitutes for temperament come in small, learnable clusters.

For the argumentative: contentious, quarrelsome, belligerent, pugnacious, and litigious for someone unusually ready to go to law.

For the way people speak: garrulous and loquacious (talking a great deal), against taciturn and reticent (saying little). SSC draws distractors from the opposite end of the same cluster, as reticent is here.

Key facts

• Contentious describes a person given to argument.
• Contentious also describes an issue that provokes argument.
• Reticent means reserved in speech rather than merely quiet.
• Veracious means truthful, while voracious with an o means having a huge appetite.

Common traps

• Reading veracious as voracious and dismissing it for the wrong reason
• Choosing reticent because it sounds like a temperament word, when it names the opposite temperament

No directly related past PYQ was found.