3:2 beleaguered

When and Where: Almost every time I go to check my Yahoo mail, I browse through the top featured stories on Yahoo's homepage. After selecting an article on a mass prison break out, I was only able to read a few sentences before stumbling on an unfamiliar word, beleaguered . 

"More than 130 inmates escaped through a tunnel from a Mexican prison on the border with the United States in one of the worst jailbreaks the country's beleaguered penal system has suffered in recent years."
 Here's the article http://news.yahoo.com/more-30-escape-mexican-prison-u-border-010342552.html

Definition: 1) To surround with military forces. 2) To surround or beset, as with troubles.

Taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/beleaguered

It's hard to tell exactly which is the best definition for the word in context, as they both fit. But I think definition 2 is more fitting after reading the rest of the paragraph.

In Context: After getting in several fights, the beleaguered boy was sent to a new school.

Level of Familiarity: Until the article, I do not think I had ever encountered this word before. But I could have easily read this word in a story before and simply ignored it.

Reflective Commentary:I think this is an interesting word and would be a useful word to know. While I would not think to teach this to my students, I think it is a word that would be good for upper level courses. But since this word is from a news article, it must be a word of some importance. Some people might be able to decipher its meaning using context clues but some may not. I'm curious why the author of this article chose to use that word.