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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. Notarize

To proceed completely around:

Lacking or marked by a lack of self-confidence; shy and timid.

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

To certify or attest to (the validity of a signature on a document, for example) as a notary public.


2. Vehement

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

Clear to the understanding.

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid.


3. Parabola

Having a harmful effect; injurious.

A plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone and a plane parallel to an element of the cone.

Very talkative; garrulous.

Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.


4. Homogeneous

A factor that determines a range of variations; a boundary

Of the same or similar nature or kind

The iron-containing respiratory pigment in red blood cells of vertebrates.

Deception by trickery or sophistry.


5. Soliloquy

A place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.

A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

Vanishing or likely to vanish like vapor.

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.


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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.