The question asks to find the most appropriate word to replace the underlined segment: "The meeting was postponed because it was not attended by enough people to make it valid."

Understanding the Underlined Phrase

The phrase "not attended by enough people to make it valid" refers to a situation where a meeting lacks the minimum number of attendees required by rules or law to conduct official business or make decisions. This minimum number is often called a quorum.

Analyzing the Options

Let's look at the given options:

• treason: This refers to the crime of betraying one's country. It is completely unrelated to the context of a meeting's attendance.
• tyranny: This means cruel and oppressive government or rule. It is also unrelated to meeting attendance.
• inquorate: This adjective specifically means lacking the quorum or the minimum number of members required to make a meeting valid. This perfectly matches the meaning of the underlined phrase. If a meeting is inquirate, it means not enough people attended for it to be official.
• dissolved: This means brought to an end or dispersed. While a meeting might be dissolved *because* it is inquirate, the word "dissolved" itself doesn't describe the *reason* (lack of attendance) for the postponement.

Selecting the Best Replacement

The word inquorate directly and accurately describes a meeting that has not been attended by enough people to be considered valid.

Therefore, the sentence would correctly read: "The meeting was postponed because it was inquorate."

Meeting Validity Explained

A key concept in formal meetings is the quorum. A quorum is the minimum number of members required to be present for the proceedings of a meeting to be valid. If a meeting does not achieve quorum, any decisions made are typically invalid, and often, the meeting must be adjourned or postponed.

The word used to describe a meeting lacking quorum is inquorate.

Incorrect Options Context

The terms treason and tyranny belong to the domain of political offenses and governance, making them unsuitable for describing meeting attendance.

Dissolved describes the ending or breaking up of something. A meeting might be dissolved if it's inquirate, but "inquorate" is the specific term for the *condition* of lacking sufficient attendance.