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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.
This Week's Word In The News 

FOOTHOLD

DEFINITION:
A position usable as a base for further advance.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Growing national anxiety over the impact of massive data centers on communities has found a foothold in Greater Boston in the form of Markley’s Lowell location.
The Boston Herald, 08/10/2026

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. Decorum

Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

Having a backbone or spinal column.

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

A person with masterly skill or technique in the arts.


2. Sacrifice

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

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.

To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

A teacher and guide in spiritual and philosophical matters.


3. Jaunty

A characteristic rate or rhythm of activity; a pace

Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.


4. Plateau

Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

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

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

To rejoice greatly; be jubilant or triumphant


5. Solstice

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

Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.

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

The branch of biology that deals with animals and animal life, including the study of the structure, physiology, development, and classification of animals.


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