Question

From the given sentence, form a feminine noun from the masculine one, by placing a word before or after:

        The sight of the peacock fluttering its beautiful feathers is a pleasure to watch.

a) Peacruck
b) Peahen
c) Peaox
d) Peacow

Answer 1

Hint: To begin with, one needs to pick out the nouns from among the words of the sentence, then figure out which one of them can have a feminine form.

Complete step-by-step answer:

In the given sentence, the nouns are “sight”, “peacock”, “feathers” and “pleasure”. The only noun that can have a feminine form is “peacock”. Option a, “peacruck” is not a word in the English language, it is incorrect. Option b, “peahen” is the correct feminine form of “peacock”, just like the feminine form of the noun “cock” is “hen”, hence it is the correct option. Option c, “peaox” again does not exist in English language, the suffix “ox” is a noun in itself, whose feminine form is “oxen”, hence it is an incorrect option. Option d, “Peacow”, is not a valid word either, the suffix “cow” is a feminine form of the noun “bull”, hence it is incorrect as well.

Note: To be able to answer this question correctly, one must be very clear with the idea of nouns and which ones can and cannot have feminine and masculine forms. Next, one must be aware of the feminine or masculine form of the required word. Without prior knowledge, the options can be confusing.