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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. Tranquility

A movement or procedure involving skill and dexterity.

The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.


2. Spectrum

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

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.


3. Ellipse

The locus of points for which the sum of the distances from each point to two fixed points is equal

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

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

An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.


4. Kilometer

An embankment built to prevent flooding

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

The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.

Any of various nonplacental mammals, including kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and wombats, found principally in Australia and the Americas.


5. Renegade

A poisonous substance, especially a protein, that is produced by living cells or organisms.

One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.

One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.


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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.