Choose the best contextual meaning of insidious in the passage:
Soil salinization is an insidious threat to agricultural food security; its initial progression is completely invisible at the surface until toxic salt thresholds precipitate sudden, irreversible crop failure.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. proceeding gradually and subtly, but with harmful consequences
- Step 1: Analyze context: salinization progresses invisibly and subtly under the surface until it suddenly causes severe damage.
- Step 2: 'Insidious' means proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects; treacherous or stealthy.
Answer
proceeding gradually and subtly, but with harmful consequences.
Why not the others: 'immediately catastrophic and accompanied by violent tremors' describes an earthquake; 'universally beneficial and easily remedied with tap water' is the opposite of a harmful threat; 'strictly limited to coastal marine aquaculture ponds' is an arbitrary geographical restriction.
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