Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

SUREFIRE

DEFINITION:
Certain or likely, especially to succeed.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Kirby taught himself how to count cards, a surefire way to get barred from gambling at a casino, “raking in money on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas,” the article stated.
►The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 05/04/2026

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Words in the News Quiz
5 High 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. Tempestuous

► Physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy.

► Not limited to or associated with a particular religious denomination.

► Tumultuous; stormy.

► An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.

2. Precipitous

► Vanishing or likely to vanish like vapor.

► To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.

► An extremely distant, and thus old, celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of our entire galaxy.

► Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.

3. Belie

► A system of names used in an art or science:

► A place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.

► A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

► To picture falsely; misrepresent.

4. Photosynthesis

► Everyday; commonplace.

► The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source.

► Impossible to dispute; unquestionable

► To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.

5. Supercilious

► To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate.

► A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

► Either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.

► Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

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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.