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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 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. Typhoon

A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,

Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

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

A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.


2. Participle

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

The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion

A form of a verb that in some languages, such as English, can function independently as an adjective.


3. Guerrilla

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

A dense evergreen forest occupying a tropical region with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches.

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

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


4. Ultraviolet

Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.

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

The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.

A teacher and guide in spiritual and philosophical matters.


5. Omnivore

A teacher and guide in spiritual and philosophical matters.

A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.

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

A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus


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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.