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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

PETITIONER

DEFINITION:
A person who pleads with a governmental institution for a legal remedy or a redress of grievances, through the use of a petition.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
While presenting the citizens’ petition for debate at the April 11 Spring Town Meeting, petitioners argued that ICE operations in Plymouth have “created fear” and “disrupted lives” among the immigrant community, leading to what they call a distrust of local police.
The Boston Herald, 04/20/2026

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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. Heritage

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.

To take in by elaborate methods of deceit


2. Nuisance

The supporting and water-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting primarily of tracheids and vessels; woody tissue.

One that is inconvenient, annoying, or vexatious; a bother.

To condescend to give or grant

Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.


3. Typhoon

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

Any of various relatively small sailing or motor-driven vessels used for pleasure cruises or racing.

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

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


4. Nocturnal

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

Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

Of, relating to, or occurring in the night

A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.


5. Light-Year

Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

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

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

To move in waves or with a smooth, wavelike motion.


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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.