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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

BACKLOT

DEFINITION:
An area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.
The Los Angeles Times, 05/18/2026

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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. Reciprocal

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

Attended by favorable circumstances; propitious.

Division into ordered groups or categories.

A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,


2. Deciduous

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

Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

Having a harmful effect; injurious.

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


3. Kinetic

Of, relating to, or produced by motion.

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

To proceed completely around:

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


4. Bowdlerize

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

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

The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.

Logical incongruity


5. Facetious

The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.

Logical incongruity

Having one’s true identity concealed.

Playfully jocular; humorous


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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.