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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

FOOTHOLD

DEFINITION:
A position usable as a base for further advance.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Growing national anxiety over the impact of massive data centers on communities has found a foothold in Greater Boston in the form of Markley’s Lowell location.
The Boston Herald, 08/10/2026

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Words in the News Quiz
5 High 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. Abstemious

Eating and drinking in moderation.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

A part, portion, or share.

A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.


2. Lugubrious

A part, portion, or share.

A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

Clear to the understanding.

Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.


3. Hypotenuse

An extremely distant, and thus old, celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of our entire galaxy.

A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.


4. Recapitulate

Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.

An advocate of the extension of political voting rights, especially to women.

Attended by favorable circumstances; propitious.

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.


5. Chicanery

Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

The clear, yellowish fluid portion of blood, lymph, or intramuscular fluid in which cells are suspended.

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

To endow with the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote.


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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.