Home Order Login Verify About NIE Sponsor NIE Contact Us
Geography Last Week Front Page Cartoons News Video Words Use the News History Special Report Pulse NASA

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

Generate your own quiz
Select a grade level
 Elementary
 Middle School
 High School
Select a quiz type
 By words
 By Definitions
Select how many questions
5   10   15   20  

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. Nihilism

To bring under control; conquer.

An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.

A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.


2. Hubris

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

Of or relating to money

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

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.


3. Bowdlerize

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

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

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

To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.


4. Photosynthesis

The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source.

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.

A part, portion, or share.

Either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.


5. Lucid

To renounce under oath; forswear.

Clear to the understanding.

To show servile deference.

Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight.


Get more Quizzes 

 Elementary School    Middle School   High School  

 By Word     By Definition    5  10  15  20 Questions

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.