Michael V. answered • 01/09/22
College Graduate and Fluent English Speaker
This question is asking for two different things.
The first is whether or not you understand the word.
The second is if you can use it in a coherent sentence.
When you are working with vocabulary questions the best way to answer it is to just know all the words and all the different ways they can be used...but that isn't always going to work. So we move to context clues, using the parts of the sentence we have to figure it all out. This is a little harder than usual because you only have half a sentence to start with.
We've got an artist, a wealthy family and some people think he's 'under their auspices' for some reason. You can imagine it being a literal interpretation. Maybe an auspice is some sort of building that only rich people have and an artist would like to be under. Or you can try and see if you can create a metaphor out of the phrase. Maybe there is another turn of phrase that is similar. Being 'under someone's wing' might be close to the meaning.
This is a difficult question because knowing the definition of the word itself is not all that helpful. An auspice is a divine omen, like some sort of sign from the gods. If you look into the origin of the word it specifically comes from bird watching. Nowadays we only really keep using the word for the phrase 'under the auspices of' and it means something like 'under the protection of'.
Now that you know what the word means you need to figure out a way to complete the sentence. Think about what it means for the artist to be under the auspices of a wealthy family. Also think about why other people would think that the family is protecting or watching over him (or her).
