Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

ROOSTER TAIL

DEFINITION:
A high-arching spray (as of water, dust, or snow) thrown up behind a fast-moving motorboat, motor vehicle, or skier.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
A second red flag was waved during the fifth race of the day when Rollin Transport got into a rooster tail on the turn of the first lap, resulting in the boat going onto its side before flipping.
The Key West Citizen, 11/10/2025

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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. Pulverize

To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

Self-examination.

Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

To stress or emphasize; intensify


2. Hieroglyphic

Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

To stress or emphasize; intensify

A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

Relating to a system of writing, such as that of ancient Egypt, in which pictorial symbols are used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound.


3. Laconic

Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.

The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.


4. Silhouette

Of, relating to, or occurring in the night

Any of several rod-shaped bacteria, of the genus Salmonella, that cause food poisoning and other diseases.

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

A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.


5. Voracious

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.

One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.

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


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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.