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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. Flourish

An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.

The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.


2. Strategy

A proportional part or share.

One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.

To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.


3. Tsunami

A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.

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

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


4. Recede

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

An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.

To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.


5. Divulge

To proclaim publicly

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

Sharing the same opinions or views; being in complete harmony or accord.


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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.