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. Mosaic

► Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.

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

► Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

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

2. Accentuate

► An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze.

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

► To stress or emphasize; intensify

► The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

3. Formidable

► To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.

► Inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder

► A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

► The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.

4. Dialogue

► To proclaim publicly

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

► Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

► A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.

5. Camouflage

► An embankment built to prevent flooding

► The method or result of concealing personnel or equipment from an enemy by making them appear to be part of the natural surroundings

► Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

► A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation

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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.