To compare two strings lexicographically the String method ____________ should be used.

A) equals
B) equalsIgnoreCase
C) compareTo
D) ==

The method compareTo() compares two strings lexicographically and returns an integer value. It compares each character of the strings and returns 0 if the strings are equal, a negative value if the first string is lexicographically smaller than the second, or a positive value if the first string is lexicographically greater than the second. This method is specifically designed for comparing strings lexicographically, while the other methods (equals and equalsIgnoreCase) are used for checking the equality of strings. The == operator compares object references, not the contents of the strings.