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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

ACQUAINTANCE

DEFINITION:
A person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
When photographer Peter Turnley was just 20 years old, an acquaintance from the California Office of Economic Opportunity reached out to him with a question.
The Los Angeles Times, 12/01/2025

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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. Antebellum

To repeat in concise form. To make a summary.

To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

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

To renounce under oath; forswear.


2. Thermodynamics

The lowest point

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

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

Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness.


3. Usurp

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

To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.

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

A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.


4. Omnipotent

A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.

To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.


5. Filibuster

The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action.

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.

To proceed completely around:

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


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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.