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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

OVERZEALOUS

DEFINITION:
Showing too much energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, attributed the encounter to an “overzealous poll worker who was complaining to the officer that the councilor shouldn’t have even been inside.”
The Boston Herald, 11/17/2025

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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. Quasar

To show servile deference.

Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.

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

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


2. Temblor

Lacking or marked by a lack of self-confidence; shy and timid.

To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.

A diligent, dependable worker.

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


3. Xenophobe

To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

An advocate of the extension of political voting rights, especially to women.

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.


4. Nadir

The lowest point

The science and technology of building electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules.

The art or study of correct spelling according to established usage.

Deception by trickery or sophistry.


5. Pecuniary

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

Of or relating to money

Lacking social polish; tactless.


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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.