Homophones and Word Meaning

The sets SSC used:

• Food and home: flour (ground grain), floor (the ground of a room), flower (a bloom); pair (two of a kind), pear (a fruit); whole (all of it), hole (a gap); buy (purchase), by, bye; add (put in more), aid (help).
• Body and health: heal (cure), heel (back of the foot); pale (light in colour, unwell), pail (a bucket); dose (an amount of medicine), doze (sleep lightly).
• People and rule: heir (one who inherits), hair, hare; reign (rule), rein (a strap to control a horse); troupe (a group of performers), troop (a group of soldiers); capitol (the US Congress building), capital (chief city, money).
• Ways and places: route (a way), root, rout; aisle (a passage between rows), isle (an island); site (a place), cite (quote), sight (vision).
• Actions: waive (give up a right), wave; brakes (stop a vehicle), breaks; prays, preys (hunts); bear (put up with), bare (uncovered); rode (past of ride), road, rowed; write, right, rite.
• Small words: their (belonging to them), there; too (very, also), to, two; dew (water drops at dawn), due.
• Look-alikes: accept (receive), except (leave out); complement (go well with, complete), compliment (praise); dual (double), duel (a fight between two).

How to work these:

• Name the meaning first. Say in two words what the bold word means in its own sentence (strict, a timepiece, a low sound).
• Test each option against that meaning. A sentence where the meaning still fits is not the answer, even if the setting changes.
• A new form is not a new word. 'Compacted the soil' keeps the sense of pressing close; it is the same word as a verb, not a homonym.
• When no option is a true homonym. Twenty-one of the 38 questions carry a notice: the word SSC printed has only one meaning. SSC's key picked the sentence that uses the word furthest from its normal setting.

What SSC asked:

• Words for people: termagant (a violent, quarrelsome woman), diffident (shy through lack of confidence), daredevil (a fearless person), atheist (one who does not believe in god), illiterate (one who cannot read and write).
• Speech and truth: harangue (a long, aggressive speech), verity (truth), perspicuous (clear, easy to understand).
• Look-alike pairs: adverse (harmful, as in adverse effects) and averse (unwilling, as in averse to risk); perspicuous (clear) and perspicacious (shrewd).
• Words that go together: diametrically opposed (completely opposite), rigorous scrutiny (close examination), a flock of birds and a herd of cattle.
• Word forms: the blank decides the form. After an adjective such as 'widespread' you need a noun (confusion); after a verb such as 'spoke', an adverb (perspicuously).