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. Phloem

► The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

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

► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

► The main character in a drama or other literary work.

2. Salmonella

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

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

► Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

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

3. Embargo

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

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

► To condescend to give or grant

► A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

4. Quandary

► Of, relating to, or occurring in the night

► The method or result of concealing personnel or equipment from an enemy by making them appear to be part of the natural surroundings

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

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

5. Marsupial

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

► Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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

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

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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.