100 free Synonym trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Synonym trivia is the vocabulary round of a pub quiz: you are given a word and asked which of four options means the same thing. This quiz runs from everyday words like frugal, candid and feasible up to the ones that decide spelling bees and SAT scores: impecunious, taciturn, umbrage, magnanimous. Every question has exactly one true synonym among the four options; the distractors are usually an antonym and two unrelated words, so guessing is harder than it looks. Each explanation adds where the word came from. Laconic honours the famously terse Spartans of Laconia, candid comes from the Latin for white, exuberant began life describing an overflowing udder, and myriad was the Greek word for ten thousand. There are also a few questions on the thesaurus itself: Peter Mark Roget, the 1852 publication and what the word thesaurus originally meant. Every synonym was checked against the dictionary entry before publishing, and each question links to the source so you can look up the full list of related words.
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Q 01Which word is a synonym of "frugal"?
thrifty
It comes from the Latin frugalis, meaning virtuous or thrifty, and displaced the Old English spærhende, literally 'spare-handed'.
Q 02Which word is a synonym of "candid"?
frank
The Latin root candidus means white; a candidate was originally an office-seeker in a whitened toga.
Q 03Which word is a synonym of "feasible"?
doable
It descends from the Old French faisable, from faire, to do, so it literally means 'do-able'.
Q 04Which word is a synonym of "tedious"?
monotonous
It comes from the Latin taedium, weariness, the same root that gives English tedium.
Q 05Which word is a synonym of "tranquil"?
serene
The Latin tranquillus is built on the root of quies, rest, the source of quiet.
Q 06Which word is a synonym of "obsolete"?
antiquated
The Latin obsoletus meant worn out or gone out of use, from a verb meaning to wear out or grow old.
Q 07Which word is a synonym of "arrogant"?
conceited
It comes via Old French from the Latin arrogans, the present participle of arrogo, to claim for oneself.
Q 08Which word is a synonym of "mundane"?
commonplace
The root is the Latin mundus, world, so its older sense was simply 'worldly' as opposed to spiritual.
Q 09Which word is a synonym of "jubilant"?
elated
It comes from the Latin iubilans, shouting for joy.
Q 10Which word is a synonym of "docile"?
submissive
The Latin docilis, from docere, to teach, originally meant simply 'teachable'.
Q 11Which word is a synonym of "callous"?
heartless
The Latin callosus meant hard-skinned, from callum, hardened skin, which is why a callus on the foot shares the root.
Q 12Which word is a synonym of "hostile"?
unfriendly
It shares its Latin root hostis, meaning stranger or enemy, with the word host in the sense of an army.
Q 13Which word is a synonym of "abhor"?
loathe
First attested in 1449, it comes from the Latin abhorreo, to shrink away from in horror, built on horreo, to bristle with fear.
Q 14Which word is a synonym of "audacious"?
Q 21Which word is a synonym of "nefarious"?
wicked
The Latin nefas meant something contrary to divine law, from ne, not, and fas, the dictates of religion.
Q 22Which word is a synonym of "zealous"?
fervent
It goes back to the Greek zelos, meaning both zeal and jealousy, which makes it a doublet of jealous.
Q 23Which word is a synonym of "morose"?
sullen
The Latin morosus meant particular or peevish, from mos, custom or self-will, the same root as moral.
Q 24Which word is a synonym of "laconic"?
daring
The Latin audax, bold, comes from audeo, to dare; the same root gives audacity.
Q 15Which word is a synonym of "belligerent"?
combative
The Latin belligerans meant waging war, from bellum, war, and gero, to carry on; a belligerent in a treaty is simply a warring party.
Q 16Which word is a synonym of "arduous"?
strenuous
The Latin arduus meant lofty, steep or hard to reach, and is akin to the Irish ard, high.
Q 17Which word is a synonym of "dearth"?
scarcity
It appears in Tyndale's Pentateuch of 1530 and probably comes from an unrecorded Old English word related to dear, in the sense of costly.
Q 18Which word is a synonym of "ephemeral"?
fleeting
The Greek ephemeros meant lasting only for a day, from epi and hemera, day; the mayfly family is named Ephemeroptera for the same reason.
Q 19Which word is a synonym of "hackneyed"?
trite
It comes from the hackney carriage, hired so often that anything overused came to be called hackneyed; the same word gives us 'hack' for a jobbing writer.
Q 20Which word is a synonym of "meticulous"?
painstaking
Oddly, the Latin meticulosus meant fearful or timid, from metus, fear; the sense of careful precision came later.
terse
It comes from Laconia, the region ruled by the Spartans, who were famous for their brevity of speech.
Q 25Which word is a synonym of "capricious"?
fickle
It comes via French and Italian from capriccio, the same word that gives music its capriccio, a free-form piece.
Q 26Which word is a synonym of "clandestine"?
covert
The Latin clandestinus meant secret or concealed; French uses the same word, clandestin.
Q 27Which word is a synonym of "garrulous"?
talkative
The Latin garrulus comes from the verb garrio, to chatter.
Q 28Which word is a synonym of "placid"?
cool-headed
The Latin placidus, peaceful, comes from placeo, to please or satisfy, the root of please and placebo.
Q 29Which word is a synonym of "obstinate"?
stubborn
The Latin obstino meant to set one's mind firmly on something; the English word has been recorded since Middle English.
Q 30Which word is a synonym of "insipid"?
bland
The Latin insipidus meant tasteless, from in, not, and sapidus, savoury; the sense of 'dull' may have been influenced by insipient, foolish.