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. Tranquility

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

► The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.

► The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

► The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

2. Immune

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

► Not subject to an obligation imposed on others; exempt.

► A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

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

3. Hologram

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

► Any of several rod-shaped bacteria, of the genus Salmonella, that cause food poisoning and other diseases.

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

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

4. Levee

► The locus of points for which the sum of the distances from each point to two fixed points is equal

► An embankment built to prevent flooding

► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

5. Voracious

► Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.

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

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

► A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation

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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.