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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

BILLIONAIRE

DEFINITION:
One whose wealth is estimated at a billion or more dollars, pounds, or other monetary units.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
About a dozen people took part in the “March for billionaires” on Saturday morning in San Francisco to raise awareness about the plight of the ultrarich.
The Los Angeles Times, 02/09/2026

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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. Expurgate

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

Having a bad disposition; surly.

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

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


2. Usurp

To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill.

To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.

Everyday; commonplace.

To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.


3. Oligarchy

The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action.

Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

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

Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.


4. Deleterious

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

Vanishing or likely to vanish like vapor.

Having a harmful effect; injurious.

Lacking or marked by a lack of self-confidence; shy and timid.


5. Acumen

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight.

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.

Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.


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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.