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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

FOOTHOLD

DEFINITION:
A position usable as a base for further advance.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Growing national anxiety over the impact of massive data centers on communities has found a foothold in Greater Boston in the form of Markley’s Lowell location.
The Boston Herald, 08/10/2026

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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. Respiration

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

The act or process of inhaling and exhaling; breathing.

To picture falsely; misrepresent.

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.


2. Circumnavigate

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.

To endow with the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote.

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

To proceed completely around:


3. Usurp

A plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone and a plane parallel to an element of the cone.

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

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

Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.


4. Polymer

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

Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid.

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

Everyday; commonplace.


5. Expurgate

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

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

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

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


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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.