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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

PETITIONER

DEFINITION:
A person who pleads with a governmental institution for a legal remedy or a redress of grievances, through the use of a petition.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
While presenting the citizens’ petition for debate at the April 11 Spring Town Meeting, petitioners argued that ICE operations in Plymouth have “created fear” and “disrupted lives” among the immigrant community, leading to what they call a distrust of local police.
►The Boston Herald, 04/20/2026

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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. Suffrage

► The locus of points for which the sum of the distances from each point to two fixed points is equal

► The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

2. Mosaic

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

► Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

► Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

► A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

3. Light-Year

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

► Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

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

► Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

4. Strategy

► A proportional part or share.

► A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.

► The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.

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

5. Outrageous

► An embankment built to prevent flooding

► To take in by elaborate methods of deceit

► Having or demonstrating enthusiasm

► Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

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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.