Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

RESPIRATORY

DEFINITION:
Relating to breathing.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
They weren’t warned to wear respiratory and other personal protection because the burning composite materials from the F-35 stealth fighter were releasing potentially harmful airborne particles and fibers, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
►The Albuquerque Journal, 03/30/2026

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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. Rainforest

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

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

► To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.

► Of, relating to, or occurring in the night

2. Quandary

► Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

► Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

► Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

3. Decorum

► Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

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

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

► Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

4. Aspire

► Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

► To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

► 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.

► An ammunition belt, worn over the shoulder, having loops or pockets for cartridges.

5. Dialogue

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

► Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

► The arrangement of events in time

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

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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.