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. Vertebrate

► To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

► Having a backbone or spinal column.

► To stress or emphasize; intensify

► The supporting and water-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting primarily of tracheids and vessels; woody tissue.

2. Protagonist

► An embankment built to prevent flooding

► To honor the memory of with a ceremony

► The main character in a drama or other literary work.

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

3. Stereotype

► One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

► An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.

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

► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

4. Boycott

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

► 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 very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

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

5. Malignant

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

► A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

► Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

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

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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.