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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 Middle 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. Sacrifice

The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

A cult or religious movement, a group sharing particular (often unorthodox) political and/or religious beliefs.

A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation


2. Flourish

Relating to a system of writing, such as that of ancient Egypt, in which pictorial symbols are used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound.

A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.

To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive

A Y-shaped protein on the surface of B cells that is secreted into the blood or lymph in response to an antigenic stimulus


3. Outrageous

A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).

Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

The main character in a drama or other literary work.


4. Gargoyle

The main character in a drama or other literary work.

The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.


5. Hologram

One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.

A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.


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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.