alternate possibilities: "superficial" for deep, "genuine" for artificial, "sunset" for dawn, "follow" for precede, "sturdy" for weak, and "some" for none -- replies welcome (and expected)
I agree. If a word doesn't have a true antonym - none/all, e.g. - then what you have is a choice. There are many words which mean the opposite of despair, "hope" is a good one but not the only one. In this type of quiz, such words should be avoided.
I think you need to take the word itself and its structure into account. So, while I agree there are many on here that aren't really antonyms, dusk is the logical antonym for dawn, whereas sunset would be logical antonym for sunrise. As for some being an acceptable antonym of all- it's like a thousand Venn diagrams all screamed out at once, and were suddenly silenced.
Joy was my first thought. I googled antonym for despair and it came up with both hope and joy, and for the verb it listed cheerful and optimistic. (I hadn't even thought about the word being both a noun and a verb.) I suspect if one googles all the words on the list, most of them would have more than one antonym. Still, it was a fun quiz and made me think so I'm not complaining. (Well, not very much.)
basic = alkaloid.. so to answer your question yes, acidic is the opposite of basic. Im not a chemist either but I know the PH, and btw I have alkaloid soil conditions, which as a wannabe botanist is important :)
So then I suppose the opposite of hope is sadness, right? Remember that in order to be true antonyms, the words have to complement each other, i.e. if you take the suggested opposite of a base word, then "re-translate" that opposite back to its antonym and don't come up with the same base word, it's not a genuine antonym. So, for me, the opposite of authentic/real would be fake. And you can have an authentic painting by Van Gogh, which is, at the same time, artificial, because it's art - right? As for regional, I don't know if that even has an antonym, but it is certainly not what I would come up with when thinking of an antonym for international.
I got them all except precede. To me, follow or conclude makes much more sense than succeed. Music will precede the speech, and a discussion will follow the speech. An introduction will precede the article and a summary will conclude the article. Oh well.
I was confused by this too, but I understand now. Think in terms of elected leaders: one person precedes the other, while a newly elected person will succeed the incumbent. Still a bit clunky in my opinion, but I see where QM was going with it.
One (i.e. Merriam-Webster) could argue that dawn is the light that precedes sunrise: "the first appearance of light in the morning followed by sunrise". Thus making sunset the wrong answer.
Different grammatical genders can be opposites, though, right? I think it's generally accepted that man/woman are opposites. I mean, if maternal and paternal are not opposite, what would would you suggest to be the correct answer? Is filial an accepted answer? If not, I guess there might be a good argument to request that, but I doubt that filial would be many people's first guess. LOL
Unlike the first two quizzes, these ones had so many possibilities - I wasted an age on different antonyms for expand. Damn English with it's hundreds of different ways to say one thing.
The plus for English is that if you can't think of the exact word you can always make yourself understood by using other words that mean the same thing.
Maybe my understanding of the definition of the word "satiety" is not correct. I think of it as meaning having had enough or being satisfied by something. If that is correct then any need, want, or desire would be correct. Not just "hunger".
"Centrifugal" is not a real experience/force. Centripetal is, and the antonym of this force acting towards the centre of curved motion would be the TANGENTIAL force. Please change this answer.
I the honourable gentleman am very displeased at the fact that one simply did not allow 'internal' or 'national' to be accepted for the direct opposite of 'international' and would therefore wish to make an official complaint.
Really not a very good quiz, just my opinion. Too many words have way too many varied choices for antonyms, as is evident from the number of comments. More choices should be allowed or the words should be changed to something that is more direct or obvious.
Is there a reason why "rejoice" is not accepted along with "hope" for the "despair" question? Also, can you accept "starve" or "starvation" along with "hunger?"
Why is "maternal" the answer for "paternal", but "filial" is not? Maternal and paternal refer to different grammatical genders, while filial seems to refer to the actual opposite. I think filial should be the only option, but at the very least it should be a type-in.
You must love doing quizzes like this QM? Watching all the moaning ninnies go "but what about X and Y.....". Hahahha. Bleating away.....Thanks for the quiz QM!
I personally enjoyed this quiz. Granted, I'm a native English speaker, and also American, so maybe those things help me. The only one I struggled with was precede, as I kept trying follow. Got succeed in the end, but it took me a hot second. While I can see the arguments a lot if people are making (and I agree with some leniency on some of them), I think we need to flip suggestions first. The opposite of joy is sorrow, not despair. The opposite of shrink is grow, not expand. Even with follow, the opposite would be lead.
There's a lot of needless whining in these comments. Yes, there are specific contexts in which a different word seems like a better fit - and there are a couple linguistic technicalities. But in the end, if you have a firm grasp of the English language (and some common sense), in each case the accepted answer is clearly defensible as the best answer.
Cuneive should definitely be accepted for cursive...when we learn to write we start in a cuneiform style. 'Follow' should be accepted for precede. 'A short presentation will precede the dinner' is understood. 'A short presentation will succeed the dinner'? Artificial > real, genuine...natural is the opposite of supernatural.
On the other hand I can't see a good reason to exclude genuine as an antonym to artificial.
Some suggestions for antonyms for "Artificial": Organic, Biological