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. Bandolier

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

► Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.

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

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

2. Participle

► Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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

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

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

3. Tumult

► A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

► A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).

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

► To condescend to give or grant

4. Recede

► To condescend to give or grant

► One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

► To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

► One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.

5. Metaphor

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

► A proportional part or share.

► A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy

► One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

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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.