SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 18 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 give chalice a single origin, Latin calix 'cup', and no unrelated word of the same spelling, so strictly no option holds a true homonym; the key can only be read as marking the sentence where chalice cannot mean a cup, 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 priest lifted the chalice during the Eucharist.

(a)The forger crafted a silver chalice with vine engravings.
(b)The noble toasted with a jeweled chalice.
(c)The investor discussed the chalice of currency debasement.
(d)The altar server held the golden chalice reverently.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the given sentence chalice is the cup a priest lifts at the Eucharist: a physical drinking vessel.

Options (a), (b) and (d) keep that meaning: a silver chalice a forger crafts, a jeweled one a noble toasts with, a golden one an altar server holds.

Option (c) sets the word in currency debasement, where no cup can be meant. That is the sentence the key marks → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The forger crafted a silver chalice with vine engravings. — A silver chalice with vine engravings is still a cup someone made. The maker being a forger changes who made it, not what chalice means.
(b)
The noble toasted with a jeweled chalice. — Toasted with a jeweled chalice: the noble drinks from it, so chalice is still a drinking cup. A feast instead of a church changes the setting, not the meaning.
(d)
The altar server held the golden chalice reverently. — The altar server held the golden chalice repeats the stem almost word for word: the same altar cup in the same church. It is the closest match in meaning, the opposite of what the question asks.

Concept

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

Here the stem fixes one meaning, a cup. Three options repeat it, and one sets the word where a cup cannot fit. The task is to find the sentence where the highlighted sense breaks.

Wiktionary and Etymonline give chalice a single origin, Latin calix, 'cup', and record no unrelated word with the same spelling. Strictly, then, no option holds a true homonym.

Option (c) is a figurative use of the same word; Wiktionary lists the idiom poisoned chalice among its derived terms. The item works by elimination: (a), (b) and (d) are plainly a cup.

Key facts

A homonym shares spelling and sound with an unrelated word: stern (strict) and stern (the rear of a ship).
Chalice comes from Latin calix, 'cup', and names a large drinking cup, used especially at formal occasions and religious ceremonies.
Wiktionary and Etymonline record no second, unrelated word spelled chalice.

Study next

True homonyms with unrelated meanings, such as stern, bank and batFigurative uses of concrete nouns, such as poisoned chaliceHomophones and homographs, and how they differ from homonyms

Common traps

Picking (d) because it shares the church setting, when the question asks for the sentence whose meaning differs.
Treating a new setting as a new meaning: in (a) and (b) the chalice is still a cup, only its owner changes.

17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.13 builds the same item around corbel, keying 'the political corbel in Machiavellian strategy', the sentence where the wall-bracket sense cannot fit.

For a true homonym, compare 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19: a stern warning against the stern of a ship.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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