Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

PETITIONER

DEFINITION:
A person who pleads with a governmental institution for a legal remedy or a redress of grievances, through the use of a petition.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
While presenting the citizens’ petition for debate at the April 11 Spring Town Meeting, petitioners argued that ICE operations in Plymouth have “created fear” and “disrupted lives” among the immigrant community, leading to what they call a distrust of local police.
►The Boston Herald, 04/20/2026

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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. Heritage

► Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.

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

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

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

2. Random

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

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

► Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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

3. Laconic

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

► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

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

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

4. Yacht

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

► Any of various relatively small sailing or motor-driven vessels used for pleasure cruises or racing.

► A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.

► An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.

5. Labyrinth

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

► An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze.

► To honor the memory of with a ceremony

► A person with masterly skill or technique in the arts.

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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.