Home
|
For Teachers
|
For Students
|
For Families
|
Contact Us
Lesson Plans
Last Week in the News
News Video
Cartoons
Geography
Use the News
Front Page
Pulse
History
Vocab
Stock Market

Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

MITIGATION

DEFINITION:
The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
But after years of record investment by the state in such wildfire risk mitigation, two key money sources are drying up, potentially reducing the state’s annual budget for vegetation removal by hundreds of millions of dollars.
►The Los Angeles Times, 06/01/2026

Generate your own quiz
Select a grade level
 Elementary
 Middle School
 High School
Select a quiz type
 By words
 By Definitions
Select how many questions
5   10   15   20  

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. Obsequious

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

► Of or relating to a holding of something in trust for another.

► Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.

► A factor that determines a range of variations; a boundary

2. Gauche

► Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

► 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.

► Lacking social polish; tactless.

► Division into ordered groups or categories.

3. Soliloquy

► An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.

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

► 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.

► The basic unit of currency among participating European Union countries.

4. Detritus

► Physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy.

► Shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane.

► A product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away; debris.

► The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

5. Acumen

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

► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality

► Deception by trickery or sophistry.

► Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight.

Get more Quizzes 

 Elementary School    Middle School   High School  

 By Word     By Definition    5  10  15  20 Questions

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.