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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 

ACQUAINTANCE

DEFINITION:
A person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
When photographer Peter Turnley was just 20 years old, an acquaintance from the California Office of Economic Opportunity reached out to him with a question.
The Los Angeles Times, 12/01/2025

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. Kowtow

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

The lowest point

To proceed completely around:

To show servile deference.


2. Equinox

Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.

Not limited to or associated with a particular religious denomination.

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

Either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.


3. Hypotenuse

A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

Playfully jocular; humorous

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


4. Vortex

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

To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.

Architectural.

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


5. Contradiction

Logical incongruity

Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

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

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


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