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. Unanimous

► One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

► To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion

► Sharing the same opinions or views; being in complete harmony or accord.

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

2. Quandary

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

► The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.

► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

3. Technique

► The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.

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

► Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

► Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

4. Eclectic

► Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles

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

► A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus

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

5. Symbiosis

► A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus

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

► A rebirth or revival.

► A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

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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.