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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

OVERZEALOUS

DEFINITION:
Showing too much energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union, attributed the encounter to an “overzealous poll worker who was complaining to the officer that the councilor shouldn’t have even been inside.”
The Boston Herald, 11/17/2025

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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. Tempestuous

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

Very talkative; garrulous.

Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

Tumultuous; stormy.


2. Inculcate

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.

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

The science and technology of building electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules.

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


3. Vacuous

Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance.

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

Architectural.

Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.


4. Parabola

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.

Division into ordered groups or categories.

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

The lowest point


5. Oligarchy

Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

Having one’s true identity concealed.

Of, relating to, or produced by motion.

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


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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.