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Question

Difficulty: EasyVocabulary and Word Meaning in Context

Read the excerpt below:

"After weeks of torrential rainfall, the reservoir reached its peak capacity, forcing engineers to discharge excess water into the spillway to prevent a catastrophic breakdown."

What is the contextual meaning of the word discharge as used in the passage above?

  1. releaseAnswer
  2. B
    dismiss
  3. C
    explode
  4. D
    purify

Answer

The word 'discharge' in this context means 'release'.
The term 'discharge' refers to allowing liquid to flow out or escape from a confined area. In the given excerpt, engineers are letting out excess water into a spillway, making 'release' the accurate contextual synonym.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the context of the sentence
The sentence discusses a reservoir filled to maximum capacity requiring engineers to send excess water into a spillway.
Contextual meaning depends on how the word functions alongside nearby words such as 'excess water' and 'spillway'.
2
Substitute options into the sentence
Replacing 'discharge' with 'release' preserves both grammatical structure and semantic sense.
Releasing water relieves pressure on a full reservoir.

Key Concept

Determining word meaning through surrounding sentence clues
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Topics

Vocabulary and Word Meaning in Context

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