7th Class English Synonyms and Antonyms, Homonyms and Homophones SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS/HOMONYS & HOMOPHONES

SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS

This is another very important of the vocabulary section. This section tests widely and exhaustively one’s knowledge of the language and word power, but goes beyond that to test your ability to remember words with similar meanings or opposite meanings. Or, alternately, to discover the similarity or proximity between the meaning of the given word with one of those in the options.

STRATEGY-1

If you do not know the meaning of the word, think of context in which you might have used it, that may help you to figure out the meaning, for example, in the question find the word nearest in meaning to

MAGNIFY

(a) Forgive (b) diminish (c) swell (d) extract

Now if you do not know what magnify means think of a magnifying glass and what it does. It expands or makes a thing look bigger. So the right answer will be (c).

STRATEGY-2

If you cannot find a correct antonym in the given option think of the antonyms you know of and subsequently check if there is any word in the given options which is synonymous to the antonyms in your mind. For example

INDUSTRIOUS

(a) stupid (b) harsh (c) indolent (d) complex.

If you don’t know any of the words given as options think of antonyms you could think of, like lazy, idle. Now think of synonyms of lazy and you will know indolent is a synonym of lazy. So it will be the antonym to industrious. Formula SYNONYM of ANTONYM is another ANTONYM.

STRATEGY-3

Look at the part of speech of the given verb. A word may exist in various parts of speech. For example precipitate exists a verb which means send rapidly into a certain state and also as a noun, precipitate, which means a substance deposited from a solution.

POLISH

(a) ruthlessness                  

(b) honesty

(c) indolence                       

(d) gaucheness

Now is this the verb polish or noun polish. Since all options are nouns, this cannot be the verb polish related to shoes but noun polish which means culture and sophistication and the antonym to this would be gaucheness.

HOMONYMS AND HOMOPHONES

A homonym is a word that has different meanings. In the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. Homonyms also called homophones are words that sound like one another but have different meanings. Some homonyms are spelled the same, like, bark the sound a dog makes and bark- the outer layer of tree trunk. Some homonyms are spelled differently, like one (the number) and won (having been victorious). Homonym and homophone both include words that are pronounced alike and have different spellings, and also words that are spelled alike and have different meanings. Homonyms, or multiple meaning words, are words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. For example, bear.

• A bear (the animal) can bear (tolerate) very cold temperatures.
• The driver turned left (opposite of right) and left (departed from) the main road.

Homophones, also known as sound-alike words, are words that are pronounced identically although they have different meanings and often have different spellings as well. These words are very common source of confusion when writing.

Common examples of sets of homophones include: tom too and two; they’re and their; bee and be; sun and son; which and witch; and plain and plane.

Now, we can say:

Homonyms: Words with the same spelling, and pronunciation, but different meanings.

Homophones: Words with the same spelling, but different pronunciations and meanings.