Select the option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the underlined group of words.

William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, the two great playwrights of the Elizabethan era, were living in the same time period.

Contemporaries

The option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the underlined group of words "living in the same time period" is contemporaries.

• Chauvinists are people who are excessively patriotic or proud of their own group.
• Cosmopolitans are people who are at home in many different cultures.
• Contemporaries are people who live or lived in the same time period.
• Cynics are people who believe that people are motivated by self-interest and that nothing is good or worthwhile.

The word contemporaries is the most appropriate because it specifically refers to people who lived in the same time period. The other words do not have the same connotation of shared time and space.