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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

PETITIONER

DEFINITION:
A person who pleads with a governmental institution for a legal remedy or a redress of grievances, through the use of a petition.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
While presenting the citizens’ petition for debate at the April 11 Spring Town Meeting, petitioners argued that ICE operations in Plymouth have “created fear” and “disrupted lives” among the immigrant community, leading to what they call a distrust of local police.
The Boston Herald, 04/20/2026

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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. Decorum

Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

A proportional part or share.

A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal


2. Undulate

A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

Self-examination.

To move in waves or with a smooth, wavelike motion.


3. Renegade

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

To condescend to give or grant

One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.

A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy


4. Laconic

One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.

A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy

The act of resting or the state of being at rest.

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


5. Hieroglyphic

The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.

A rebirth or revival.

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.


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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.