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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.
This Week's Word In The News 

INCARCERATED

DEFINITION:
Confined in a jail or prison.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is restricting access to rehabilitative programming for incarcerated people as it clamps down on overtime spending before the end of its financial year.
The Los Angeles Times, 06/29/2026

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. Undulate

A characteristic rate or rhythm of activity; a pace

The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.

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

Of, relating to, or occurring in the night


2. Malignant

The main character in a drama or other literary work.

A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

A closed plane figure bounded by three or more line segments.


3. Participle

Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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

Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

Being without or almost without hope


4. Hieroglyphic

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.

A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

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

Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.


5. Ultraviolet

Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

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

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.

Grossly offensive to decency or morality.


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