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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

MITIGATION

DEFINITION:
The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
But after years of record investment by the state in such wildfire risk mitigation, two key money sources are drying up, potentially reducing the state’s annual budget for vegetation removal by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Los Angeles Times, 06/01/2026

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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. Light-Year

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

Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

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

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


2. Metaphor

Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

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

One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

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


3. Tariff

A schedule of prices or fees.

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

An embankment built to prevent flooding

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


4. Renaissance

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

Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative

A rebirth or revival.

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


5. Toxin

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

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

Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

To cringe in fear


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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.