Words in the News

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

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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. Expurgate

► To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

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

► To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.

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

2. Epiphany

► A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

► A marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function.

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

► A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

3. Usurp

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

► A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

► Tumultuous; stormy.

► To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.

4. Deciduous

► Warlike in manner or temperament; pugnacious.

► A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,

► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

► Attended by favorable circumstances; propitious.

5. Laissez faire

► To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

► Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

► Noninterference in the affairs of others.

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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.