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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.
This Week's Word In The News 

CANVASS

DEFINITION:
A systematic approach to interviewing residents, merchants, and others who are in the immediate vicinity of a crime and may have useful information.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
In a press release, police said Lewisville Fire Department officials pronounced the man deceased on the scene. Police started a homicide investigation immediately, and canvassed the area in search of witnesses.
►The Denton Record-Chronicle, 09/14/2026

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

► To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

► A temple tower of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.

► The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

2. Gamete

► The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

► A system of names used in an art or science:

► A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.

► Clear to the understanding.

3. Photosynthesis

► The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source.

► Very talkative; garrulous.

► Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness.

► Warlike in manner or temperament; pugnacious.

4. Winnow

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

► Not limited to or associated with a particular religious denomination.

► The process in cell division by which the nucleus divides.

► A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

5. Nanotechnology

► A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

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

► The science and technology of building electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules.

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

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