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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. Churlish

Having a bad disposition; surly.

Physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy.

A factor that determines a range of variations; a boundary

To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.


2. Nihilism

To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.

Lacking social polish; tactless.

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

Division into ordered groups or categories.


3. Wrought

Put together; created.

Of or relating to a holding of something in trust for another.

The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.

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


4. Evanescent

To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example) before publication.

Vanishing or likely to vanish like vapor.

Shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane.

Something done or paid to compensate or make amends.


5. Tectonic

The act or process of inhaling and exhaling; breathing.

Architectural.

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.


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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.