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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

OVERZEALOUS

DEFINITION:
Showing too much energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, attributed the encounter to an “overzealous poll worker who was complaining to the officer that the councilor shouldn’t have even been inside.”
The Boston Herald, 11/17/2025

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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. Vortex

A place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.

The basic unit of currency among participating European Union countries.

A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary:


2. Nihilism

A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary:

A part, portion, or share.

A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

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


3. Oligarchy

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.

Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.

Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

To bring under control; conquer.


4. Abjure

To show servile deference.

Of, relating to, or produced by motion.

Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.

To renounce under oath; forswear.


5. Jejune

Any of numerous natural and synthetic compounds consisting of up to millions of repeated linked units,

Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

Not interesting; dull:


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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.