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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. Hegemony

The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source.

Noninterference in the affairs of others.

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

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


2. Nihilism

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

Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness.

Physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy.

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


3. Vacuous

Of or relating to a holding of something in trust for another.

Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

Logical incongruity

A temple tower of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.


4. Hubris

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

The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

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


5. Tautology

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality

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

Very talkative; garrulous.


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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.