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 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. Stereotype

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

► A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

► An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.

► Any of several rod-shaped bacteria, of the genus Salmonella, that cause food poisoning and other diseases.

2. Introspection

► An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

► Self-examination.

► In a deplorable state of distress or misfortune; miserable.

3. Toxin

► A poisonous substance, especially a protein, that is produced by living cells or organisms.

► To take in by elaborate methods of deceit

► A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

► 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.

4. Commemorate

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

► To honor the memory of with a ceremony

► One that is inconvenient, annoying, or vexatious; a bother.

► An ammunition belt, worn over the shoulder, having loops or pockets for cartridges.

5. Nebula

► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

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

► The act of resting or the state of being at rest.

► The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

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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.