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 • NASA

Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

VERTEBRAE

DEFINITION:
Each of the series of small bones forming the backbone.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The photographer with The Washington Post who was attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank so badly that several vertebrae were broken said Sunday she was increasingly angry that Israel’s military seems to protect settlers more than the Palestinians they threaten.
►Associated Press, 10/19/2026

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. Inculcate

► Division into ordered groups or categories.

► Of the same or similar nature or kind

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

► To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill.


2. Quotidian

► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality

► Playfully jocular; humorous

► Everyday; commonplace.

► To renounce under oath; forswear.


3. Sanguine

► To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.

► A product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away; debris.

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

► Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness.


4. Irony

► The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

► The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

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


5. Expurgate

► To make an accusation against.

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

► Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

► Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War.


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.