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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 

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

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. Antebellum

An extremely distant, and thus old, celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of our entire galaxy.

Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War.

Not interesting; dull:

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.


2. Lugubrious

A product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away; debris.

The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

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

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.


3. Reciprocal

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

Shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane.

An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.


4. Bellicose

Warlike in manner or temperament; pugnacious.

Of the same or similar nature or kind

A factor that determines a range of variations; a boundary

A marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function.


5. Parabola

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

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

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

Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.


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