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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

ACQUAINTANCE

DEFINITION:
A person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
When photographer Peter Turnley was just 20 years old, an acquaintance from the California Office of Economic Opportunity reached out to him with a question.
The Los Angeles Times, 12/01/2025

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Words in the News Quiz
5 High 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. Loquacious

A diligent, dependable worker.

A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

Either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.

Very talkative; garrulous.


2. Reparation

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.

Something done or paid to compensate or make amends.

A part, portion, or share.


3. Kowtow

A system of names used in an art or science:

To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

To show servile deference.

Any of numerous natural and synthetic compounds consisting of up to millions of repeated linked units,


4. Filibuster

A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.

The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action.

Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.


5. Feckless

To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example) before publication.


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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.