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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

SUREFIRE

DEFINITION:
Certain or likely, especially to succeed.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Kirby taught himself how to count cards, a surefire way to get barred from gambling at a casino, “raking in money on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas,” the article stated.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 05/04/2026

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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. Bowdlerize

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

Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.

A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.


2. Reciprocal

A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

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

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.


3. Taxonomy

An advocate of the extension of political voting rights, especially to women.

Division into ordered groups or categories.

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

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.


4. Notarize

The lowest point

Having one’s true identity concealed.

To certify or attest to (the validity of a signature on a document, for example) as a notary public.

Cheerfully confident; optimistic.


5. Vehement

A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid.

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

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.


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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.