Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

SUREFIRE

DEFINITION:
Certain or likely, especially to succeed.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Kirby taught himself how to count cards, a surefire way to get barred from gambling at a casino, “raking in money on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas,” the article stated.
►The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 05/04/2026

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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. Chronology

► The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

► The arrangement of events in time

► A dense evergreen forest occupying a tropical region with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches.

► One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

2. Virtuoso

► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

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

► Self-examination.

► Any of various nonplacental mammals, including kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and wombats, found principally in Australia and the Americas.

3. Phloem

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

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

► The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.

► A proportional part or share.

4. Silhouette

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

► A cult or religious movement, a group sharing particular (often unorthodox) political and/or religious beliefs.

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

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

5. Tsunami

► Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

► Not subject to an obligation imposed on others; exempt.

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

► 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

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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.