SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 13 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Gules has no recorded culinary sense, so sentence (b) holds no clear homonym of it; the key marks (b) as the one sentence that sets gules outside heraldry.

The answer below is still the option SSC's key marks, and we solve to that option.

Select the sentence containing the homonym of the highlighted word: The prince’s gules dominated the family coat of arms.

(a)The tapestry featured gules and argent prominently.
(b)The chef prepared a sauce of deep gules and cumin.
(c)The gules border signified martial lineage.
(d)The herald explained the symbolism of gules to visitors.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. In the highlighted sentence gules is heraldry: the colour red on a coat of arms.

Sentences (a), (c) and (d) keep that sense. Argent is heraldic silver, a gules border on a shield signifies lineage, and a herald is an officer of arms.

Sentence (b) is the one that moves gules out of heraldry, into a chef's sauce beside cumin. The key takes it as the sentence where the word is used in another sense → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The tapestry featured gules and argent prominently. — gules and argent are heraldic red and silver, and a tapestry can display them as a coat of arms does. Same word, same heraldic sense as the stem.
(c)
The gules border signified martial lineage. — The gules border is a red border on a shield, and signifying lineage is the work of heraldry. The word keeps the stem's meaning.
(d)
The herald explained the symbolism of gules to visitors. — The herald, an officer of arms, explaining the symbolism of gules keeps the word inside heraldry. Nothing in the sentence changes its meaning.

Concept

A homonym shares its spelling and sound with another word of unrelated meaning: a stern warning, and the stern of a ship.

In this format every option repeats the highlighted word, so spelling cannot help. Fix the stem's meaning first, then look for the sentence where that meaning cannot hold.

Gules is the heraldic name for red. English took it from Old French goules, a neckpiece of red fur, which goes back to Latin gula, 'throat'.

A caveat worth carrying away: dictionaries give gules its heraldic sense, and none gives it a culinary one.

The item is settled by elimination: (a), (c) and (d) are plainly heraldry, and (b) is the one sentence set outside it.

Key facts

Gules is the heraldic name for the colour red.
Argent is the heraldic name for silver or white.
In black-and-white engraving, gules is shown by vertical parallel lines.
Stern is a true homonym: strict, as in a stern warning, and the rear of a ship.

Study next

Homonyms with a nautical second sense: stern, bowPolysemy versus homonymy: one word with related senses, or two unrelated words sharing a formHeraldry words: gules, argent, herald, blazon

Common traps

Reading the tapestry sentence as a new meaning because it is about cloth, when gules and argent there are still heraldic colours
Looking for a different spelling, when every option spells gules the same way

The same format with a true homonym appears at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19, where the stern of a ship is keyed against a stern warning.

At 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13, pauldron is keyed the way gules is here: the one sentence set outside the stem's setting.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Homonyms and confusables — all 29 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.