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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 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. Introspection

Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

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

Self-examination.

An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze.


2. Nebula

A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness

An ammunition belt, worn over the shoulder, having loops or pockets for cartridges.

An embankment built to prevent flooding

A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.


3. Marsupial

A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.

The arrangement of events in time

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

The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.


4. Kilometer

To take in by elaborate methods of deceit

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

Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.

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


5. Tundra

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

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

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

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


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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.