Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

COERCE

DEFINITION:
To persuade someone forcefully to do something that they are unwilling to do.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Lina Kahn, a former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said that Google was using its “search monopoly to coerce schools” into adopting its AI.
►The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/09/2026

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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. Notarize

► Impossible to dispute; unquestionable

► To certify or attest to (the validity of a signature on a document, for example) as a notary public.

► Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.

► 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.


2. Deciduous

► To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

► Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

► A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.


3. Reciprocal

► Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.

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

► Noninterference in the affairs of others.

► Of, relating to, or produced by motion.


4. Vortex

► Noninterference in the affairs of others.

► Of, relating to, or produced by motion.

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

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


5. Detritus

► A product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away; debris.

► Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

► Of or relating to a holding of something in trust for another.

► The art or study of correct spelling according to established usage.


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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.