Scripps National
Spelling Bee Words

Spellers are cool, but this page is a brief introduction to Scripps National Spelling Bee words. I'll talk a little bit about what words are allowed, how they are selected, and show you quite a few examples of words appearing at various stages of the Bee.

NOTE — Whenever I discuss a spelling bee word somewhere on this website, you'll see the word is highlighted as a link. Just click the link to open a new page at the place where I talk about the word in more detail.

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Scripps National Spelling Bee Words
Where Do They Come From?

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Every word announced to the trembling spellers on stage in Washington for the National Spelling Bee is taken from Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, usually just abbreviated as Webster's Third.

NOTE — To be a tad pernickety, which you kind of have to be at this level, the official word source also includes the addenda section of this dictionary.

Every year, this dictionary is scoured by a word list team managed by Carolyn Andrews. Words extracted from the impossibly large tome are assembled into lists by degree of difficulty, with each list being assigned to a particular round of the Bee.

All words are fair game, including proper nouns (sorry Scrabble players!). The ruling about variant spellings is a bit subtle, but important enough, I think, to warrant quoting in full...

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Scripps National Spelling Bee Words
The Championship List

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Every spelling bee has to end, and to make sure it happens, a very special collection of words is assembled for the last few rounds of the Bee. The collection is appropriately called The Championship List.

Want to get a feel for what the words in the final rounds of the National Spelling Bee are like? Let's take a look at the sequence of words that ended the 2009 Nationals. We take up the bee when there are just four contestants remaining...

• Kyle Mou
• Aishwarya Pastapur
• Tim Ruiter
• Kavya Shivashankar

As they fight out the final rounds, the judges are forced to bring out the big guns — The Championship Word List. As if the earlier words haven't been difficult enough!

Note the caliber of words required to dismiss these amazing spellers one by one, until just one speller remains, to be crowned 2009 National Spelling Bee Champ. A name colored in red means that the speller was dismissed at that point in the Bee after misspelling the word appearing before that name.

SCHIZAFFIN — Kyle Mou

WISENT — Aishwarya Pastapur

DIACOELE — Kavya Shivashankar

REREDOS — Tim Ruiter

ANTONOMASIA — Aishwarya Pastapur

BOUQUINISTE — Kavya Shivashankar

ORIFLAMME — Tim Ruiter

GUAYABERA — Aishwarya Pastapur

ISAGOGE — Kavya Shivashankar

SOPHROSYNE — Tim Ruiter

MENHIR — Aishwarya Pastapur

PHORESY — Kavya Shivashankar

MAECENAS — Tim Ruiter

LAODICEAN — Kavya Shivashankar

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Scripps National Spelling Bee Words
Final Words

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Below is a list of the last correctly spelled word at each Bee between 1990 and 2009, inclusive. Beside each winning word I've listed the name/s of the speller/s who won the championship by correctly spelling that word...

1990 FIBRANNE — Amy Marie Dimak

1991 ANTIPYRETIC — Joanne Lagatta

1992 LYCEUM — Goad Amanda Goad

1993 KAMIKAZE — Geoff Hooper

1994 ANTEDILUVIAN — Ned G. Andrews

1995 XANTHOSIS — Justin Tyler Carroll

1996 VIVISEPULTURE — Wendy Guey

1997 EUONYM — Rebecca Sealfon

1998 CHIAROSCURIST — Jody-Anne Maxwell

1999 LOGORRHEA — Nupur Lala

2000 DEMARCHEGeorge Thampy

2001 SUCCEDANEUM — Sean Conley

2002 PROSPICIENCE — Pratyush Buddiga

2003 POCOCURANTE — Sai R. Gunturi

2004 AUTOCHTHONOUS — David Tidmarsh

2005 APPOGGIATURA — Anurag Kashyap

2006 URSPRACHE — Katharine Close

2007 SERREFINE — Evan O'Dorney

2008 GUERDON — Sameer Mishra

2009 LAODICEAN — Shivashankar Kavya Shivashankar

And it's hard to imagine a more fitting closure to this page than a tribute to that very final word...

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