Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

ATMOSPHERIC

DEFINITION:
Anything related to the atmosphere, which is the layer of gases surrounding a planet. An atmospheric river is a narrow corridor concentrated water vapor.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
A major atmospheric river storm — strong enough to potentially rival some of the extreme storms that have walloped Southern California in recent winters — is barreling toward the coast, raising the specter of damaging landslides and flooding across the region.
The Los Angeles Times, 02/10/2025

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Words in the News Quiz
5 Middle 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. Aspire

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

The method or result of concealing personnel or equipment from an enemy by making them appear to be part of the natural surroundings


2. Accentuate

A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy

To stress or emphasize; intensify

A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness

The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.


3. Vertebrate

To move in waves or with a smooth, wavelike motion.

Having a backbone or spinal column.

One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.


4. Rainforest

Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

A dense evergreen forest occupying a tropical region with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches.

A person with masterly skill or technique in the arts.

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.


5. Sacrifice

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion

Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.


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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.