Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

BACKLOT

DEFINITION:
An area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.
The Los Angeles Times, 05/18/2026

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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. Ultraviolet

One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.

To rejoice greatly; be jubilant or triumphant


2. Wretched

The act of resting or the state of being at rest.

An embankment built to prevent flooding

To cringe in fear

In a deplorable state of distress or misfortune; miserable.


3. Hypocrisy

A schedule of prices or fees.

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

To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.


4. Participle

Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

A form of a verb that in some languages, such as English, can function independently as an adjective.


5. Technique

To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.

A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal


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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.