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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

OVERZEALOUS

DEFINITION:
Showing too much energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, attributed the encounter to an “overzealous poll worker who was complaining to the officer that the councilor shouldn’t have even been inside.”
The Boston Herald, 11/17/2025

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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. Hieroglyphic

The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

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

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.


2. Quota

To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

A proportional part or share.

A poisonous substance, especially a protein, that is produced by living cells or organisms.


3. Marsupial

Having a backbone or spinal column.

To proclaim publicly

Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

Any of various nonplacental mammals, including kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and wombats, found principally in Australia and the Americas.


4. Virtuoso

The arrangement of events in time

A person with masterly skill or technique in the arts.

Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles

The branch of biology that deals with animals and animal life, including the study of the structure, physiology, development, and classification of animals.


5. Fallacy

To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive

An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.

Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

A rebirth or revival.


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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.