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

Generate your own quiz
Select a grade level
 Elementary
 Middle School
 High School
Select a quiz type
 By words
 By Definitions
Select how many questions
5   10   15   20  

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. Pulverize

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

► Exceeding the limits of propriety or good manners; improperly forward or bold

► To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

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

2. Sacrifice

► Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

► Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

► To honor the memory of with a ceremony

► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

3. Aspire

► Relating to a system of writing, such as that of ancient Egypt, in which pictorial symbols are used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound.

► To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

► Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

► A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness

4. Chronology

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

► The arrangement of events in time

► To stress or emphasize; intensify

► Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.

5. Exult

► The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

► To rejoice greatly; be jubilant or triumphant

► Having or demonstrating enthusiasm

► A person with masterly skill or technique in the arts.

Get more Quizzes 

 Elementary School    Middle School   High School  

 By Word     By Definition    5  10  15  20 Questions

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.