Question on Antonym

[ypkr]

Hi All,

Could be a simple question, but couldn't answer my DD on this,

What is the antonym for 'abrupt':
slowly vulgar courteous exact

From my understanding 'abrupt' means - suddenly, instantaneous. From my understanding, the answer should be 'slowly'.
But, I was astound to see that the answer is 'courteous'.

This question is from CGP Papers.

Can some one please show some light on this ? Am I missing something here ?

Thanks in advance,
ypkr.

[kittymum]

I would have chosen courteous - if someone is abrupt to you they are a bit brusque / impolite eg the "the waitress was very abrupt when she took my order" vs "the waitress was very courteous when she took my order".

I'm not a fan of learning vocabulary per se as so much in English is down to subtle nuances ... Always put the words into sntences if you're not sure as often the key thing is context.

Edited to say that of course your definition of abrupt is also correct but slowly wouldn't work with it - you could say "the song came to an abrupt end" but not "the song came to a slowly end" - slow might sort of work but isn't quite right ... If it was abruptly eg "the song ended abruptly" I guess you could use slowly "the song ended slowly"

[kenyancowgirl]

The other thing to remember is that the tense gives you a clue. It asks about abrupt, not abruptly, therefore slowly is not going to be the answer just from the tense (although,has kittymum says, slow is not an antonym for abrupt anyway.

[ypkr]

Thanks a lot for answers.

I did see sometimes few questions like these, but wasn't much stressing on them.