Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

OVERZEALOUS

DEFINITION:
Showing too much energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, attributed the encounter to an “overzealous poll worker who was complaining to the officer that the councilor shouldn’t have even been inside.”
The Boston Herald, 11/17/2025

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Words in the News Quiz
5 Middle School Words

Click on the correct answer in the quiz below.
Then see if you can find the word in your newspaper -- the print edition, the website or the digital edition and copy the sentence for context. NOTE: High School words are much harder to find!


1. Jovial

A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus

A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.

The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.


2. Malignant

Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

Sharing the same opinions or views; being in complete harmony or accord.


3. Ultraviolet

The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.

To move in waves or with a smooth, wavelike motion.

One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.


4. Tumult

A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

Being without or almost without hope

A closed plane figure bounded by three or more line segments.


5. Flourish

To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive

To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.

A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.

A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.


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Common Core State Standard
LS.CCS.4/5/6 Grades 3-12: Students are asked to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words through multiple choice vocabulary quizzes. Quizzes are designed to help students demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in words, acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words, and gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. Students are then asked to find the words within the newspaper and copy the sentence for context to its overall meaning or function in a sentence.