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. Incognito

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

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.

Having one’s true identity concealed.

Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.


2. Kinetic

To renounce under oath; forswear.

Deception by trickery or sophistry.

Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

Of, relating to, or produced by motion.


3. Contradiction

Having a harmful effect; injurious.

Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid.

The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.

Logical incongruity


4. Respiration

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

To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.

The act or process of inhaling and exhaling; breathing.

A temple tower of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.


5. Tectonic

Architectural.

Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.

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

The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.


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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.