SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 13 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.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record oriel only in architecture (a projecting window, with older senses of porch, gallery or small room), so no option holds a true homonym; the key can only be read as marking the sentence where the word cannot mean a window, and this card follows it.

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 medieval oriel window projected elegantly from the chapel wall.

(a)The priest admired the sunlight filtering through the oriel.
(b)The duke stood by the oriel gazing at the courtyard.
(c)The technician adjusted the frequency on the oriel.
(d)The stained-glass oriel was restored by artisans.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the stem, oriel is a building term: a window that projects from the face of a wall. Here it juts from a chapel wall.

Sentences (a), (b) and (d) keep that sense: sunlight filtering through it, a duke standing by it gazing at the courtyard, a stained-glass oriel restored.

Sentence (c) has a technician adjust the frequency on it, where a window cannot fit. That is the sentence the key marks → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The priest admired the sunlight filtering through the oriel. — Sunlight filtering through the oriel is light passing through a window. The word keeps the stem's meaning, a projecting window.
(b)
The duke stood by the oriel gazing at the courtyard. — Gazing at the courtyard from beside the oriel is looking out of a window. Same word, same architectural sense as the stem.
(d)
The stained-glass oriel was restored by artisans. — Stained-glass and the artisans who restore it point to a church window, the stem's own sense. Nothing moves the word out of architecture.

Concept

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

Here every option repeats oriel, so spelling cannot help. Fix what the stem's word means, then look for the sentence where that meaning cannot hold.

An oriel projects from the outer face of a wall on brackets or corbels. Etymonline notes that when such a projection rests on the ground, it is called a bay window or bow window.

Wiktionary records oriel in architecture, plus an obsolete sense, a small room next to a hall used for dining. Etymonline gives older senses of porch, gallery and hall.

Neither gives a sense that fits a device with a frequency, so strictly no option holds a true homonym.

The item works by elimination: (a), (b) and (d) are plainly the window, and (c) is the sentence where that reading fails.

Key facts

An oriel is a window projecting from the outer face of a wall, carried on brackets or corbels.
Etymonline traces oriel to Old French oriol and Medieval Latin oriolum, 'porch, small room, gallery'.
Stern is a true homonym: strict, as in a stern warning, and the rear of a ship.

Study next

Polysemy versus homonymy: related senses of one word, or two unrelated words sharing a formHomonyms that switch word class: stern (strict) and stern (the rear of a ship)Building vocabulary: oriel, corbel, bay window

Common traps

Reading the stained-glass sentence as a new meaning because it is about craft, when its oriel is still the window
Looking for a different spelling, when every option spells oriel the same way

The same design is keyed at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.13, which marks corbel in the sentence set in Machiavellian strategy, and at 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13, which marks pauldron on a sea slug.

A true homonym is keyed at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19: the stern of the ship against a stern warning.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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