Vocabulary Builder #1: Antonyms

Here's a vocabulary quiz that will test your knowledge of both synonyms and antonyms. For each sentence below, select the letter of the one item that most accurately defines the word in bold. When you're done, compare your responses with the answers at the bottom of the page.

Vocabulary Builder #1: Antonyms

1. His take on the Information Society is a gloomy dystopia, one directed by greedy corporations committed to oppressing their customers.
   a) An imaginary place in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.
   b) A mood disorder characterized by mild depression.
   c) The doctrine of purposelessness in nature.
   d) An abnormality in an otherwise normal rhythmic pattern, as of brain waves being recorded by an electroencephalograph.



2. The speaker repeatedly used the word "bureaucrat" as a dysphemism for government employees.
   a) One of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning.
   b) Corresponding or similar in position, value, structure, or function.
   c) Substitution of a more offensive or disparaging word or phrase for one considered less offensive.
   d) Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.



3. The photos purportedly showed the carcass of a merman washed up on a beach that was said to be located in Venda, South Africa.
   a) A magician and prophet who served as counselor to King Arthur.
   b) A dog having a reddish or bluish gray coat streaked or speckled with black.
   c) Any of a breed of sheep, originally from Spain, having long fine wool.
   d) A legendary sea creature having the head and upper body of a man and the tail of a fish.



4. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, befuddle them with blarney.
   a) To behave as a friend to.
   b) To confuse, perplex.
   c) To cast aspersions upon; speak badly of.
   d) To take for granted without proof.



5. The teacher is dealing almost exclusively with monoglot English speakers, and so the class is progressing far too slowly for my daughter.
   a) Believing that all humans are descended from a single pair of ancestors.
   b) Produced under a single set of continuing conditions.
   c) Being married to only one person at a time.
   d) Knowing only one language.



6. Our fact-checking maven has put together a checklist for the editors of the magazine.
   a) A person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert or a specialist.
   b) A person who refuses to abide by the dictates of (or resists adherence to) a group; a dissenter.
   c) A person who advocates direct or radical action to secure a social or political goal in its entirety.
   d) A god or devil with the power to transform a concept into an element of the sensible world.



7. All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
   (Samuel Butler)
   a) More exclusive, influential, or important.
   b) Possessed at birth or an an essential characteristic; inborn or inherent.
   c) Lack of worldliness or sophistication; naiveté.
   d) Candid; straightforward.



8. When Richard Pryor used the N-word in his routines back in the 1970s, it was not the casual gangsta rap autonym that it is today.
   a) The condition or quality of being autonomous; independence.
   b) A word or an expression that serves as a figurative or symbolic substitute for another.
   c) A name by which a people or social group refers to itself.
   d) A fictitious name, especially a pen name.



9. These days, there are many people around the world who listen to the songs that made me infamous and read the books that made me respectable.
   (Kinky Friedman)
   a) Incapable of failing or making a mistake; certain.
   b) Unknown or undiscovered.
   c) Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious.
   d) The quality of being widely honored and acclaimed; famous.



10. A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and so communicating, through hope, new activity to the torpid spirit.
    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
    a) A heavy, uncontrolled outpouring.
    b) Parched with the heat of the sun; intensely hot; scorching; passionate.
    c) Of such surpassing brilliance or excellence as to suggest divine inspiration.
    d) Dormant; hibernating; lethargic; apathetic.

Answers:

1. a. Opposite of utopia.
2. c. Opposite of euphemism.
3. d. Male counterpart of mermaid.
4. b. Opposite of clarify or enlighten.
5. d. Opposite of polyglot.
6. a. Opposite of amateur or novice.
7. b. Opposite of learned or acquired.
8. c. Opposite of pseudonym.
9. c. Opposite of reputable or honorable.
10. d. Opposite of active, energetic, lively.

Evaluate Your Score:

9 or 10 correct: Vocabulary Maven
7 or 8 correct: Word Whiz
5 or 6 correct: Lexically Adept
3 or 4 correct: Synonymic Striver
0 to 2 correct: Macroverbumsciolist*

* A person who's unfamiliar with big words.