"Peculiar" means strange.

"Indigenous" means native peoples; for example, Native Americans are indigenous to the United States. For clarification, "menacing" means threatening.

If you are exiled, you are sent away or permanently banished. For clarification, deplored means hated.

"Random" means occuring in no regular sequence or order, so "erratic," which means unpredictable, is the correct answer. "Orderly" is an antonym of "random" and"erratic"; it means arranged in a neat and tidy manner. "Flimsy" means weak and easily damaged. "Rash" means careless or done without much thought. "Abundant" means plentiful.

"Stark" means bare, desolate or basic, so "desolate" is the correct answer. For clarification, "fertile" means producing life, "garish" means tasteless, "brash" means bold, and "open" means unblocked or uncovered.

Someone who is "itinerant" does not have a permanent home and wanders from place to place, so "wandering" is the correct answer. For clarification, a "rout" is a heavy defeat. "Sanction" and "permit" are synonyms that each mean allow; each is an antonym of "prohibit," which means forbid.

"Lush" means abundant or luxuriant and often refers to plants or foliage, so it is most similar in meaning to "verdant," which means either of the color of grass or covered in green vegetation. For clarification, "profane" means rude and disrespectful or having to do with worldly things instead of spiritual things, "explicit" means clear and unambiguous, "subjective" means biased or based on personal opinion, and "objective" means not subject to personal opinion.

"Straightforward" means simple, easy, or direct, so "direct" is the correct answer. None of the other answer choices are close in meaning to "straightfoward": "contagious" means infectious or easily spread and most often refers to diseases; "similar" means alike; "extreme" means very great or utmost; and "unpredictable" means not able to be predicted, as you might infer from the word being a combination of the negative prefix "un-," which means not, and "predictable."

"Distant," which means secluded, is a synonym of "remote." The definition of "remote" is out-of-the-way or far apart.

"Adjacent" is an adjective that means nearby or connected by a shared border so we need to pick out another adjective that also means near or sharing a border. While "noncontiguous" may look like a correct answer, because "contiguous" is used to describe two things that are right next to each other, the "non-" prefix means not, so "noncontiguous" means not immediately next to each other. So, "noncontiguous" is an antonym of "adjacent" and can't be the right answer. "Abutting," however, means bordering, and since "abutting" is the answer choice closest in meaning to "adjacent," "abutting" is the correct answer.