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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

WILDFIRE

DEFINITION:
An unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
It was not yet clear how the wildfires started, but a long drought, low humidity and strong winds were fueling them.
The Key West Citizen, 04/27/2026

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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. Tautology

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.

To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.


2. Lugubrious

Put together; created.

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

A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality

The clear, yellowish fluid portion of blood, lymph, or intramuscular fluid in which cells are suspended.


3. Enervate

To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.

A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,

Lacking social polish; tactless.

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.


4. Abjure

Lacking social polish; tactless.

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

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

To renounce under oath; forswear.


5. Oxidize

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

To increase the positive charge or valence of (an element) by removing electrons.

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

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


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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.