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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. Oligarchy

Put together; created.

Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

Logical incongruity

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


2. Abjure

Division into ordered groups or categories.

To renounce under oath; forswear.

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.


3. Vacuous

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source.

Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.


4. Diffident

The basic unit of currency among participating European Union countries.

Of the same or similar nature or kind

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

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


5. Deciduous

A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.


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