WASHINGTON, D.C. — After three days of competition, 18 total rounds and one nail-biting, rapid-fire "spell-off," the Scripps National Spelling Bee has crowned its champion: 14-year-old Shrey Parikh from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
Over the course of two hours on Thursday night, the pool of nine finalists dropped to two: Parikh and 12-year-old Ishaan Gupta from Jersey City, N.J. After each had nailed their eighth respective word, officials carried a sleek silver podium — with a buzzer on top — onto the stage, prompting huge gasps from the crowd. It was time for a spell-off.
"I was not excited at all, because to be honest, regular spelling I feel like is a much better show of what spelling is meant to be," Parikh told reporters immediately after his win. "But I accepted the fact that there was going to be a spell-off, I calmed my mind, I got some water … and I just tried to take it all in stride and do the best I could."
Parikh and Gupta each had 90 seconds at the buzzer, alone on the stage, to spell as many words correctly as possible. Then, after a few minutes of careful counting, judges made it official: Parikh had crushed 32 words to Gupta's 25, ending in "cashaw" (a type of plant) and setting a new spell-off record.
"Once I get the word, I'm not really nervous anymore, because then it's all in my control," Parikh reflected from center stage at DAR Constitutional Hall, a grand concert hall a stone's throw from the White House.
Parikh will leave D.C. with $52,500 in cash and a slew of other perks, including hundreds of dollars' worth of reference works, flight credits and an astronaut meet-and-greet at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
He's also coming into some considerable free time: The 8th grader estimates he's spent about five hours a day working on spelling in the past year alone. He's excited to dive deeper into his other hobbies, especially tennis and math competitions. And, even before his win set in, he knew what message he wanted it to send.
"I would say, definitely, just keep trying," he said. "Trying is the best thing you can do, and it's the most important thing you can do."
This is Parikh's third bee: He placed 89th in 2022 and third in 2024.
The bee returns to its D.C. roots
This is the first time in 15 years that the competition has been held in D.C., after a long stretch in Maryland and a year in Florida during COVID. Organizers decided to return the competition to its roots in its 101st year, citing the "prestige and honor that D.C. brings to this experience for spellers," plus access to the city's free museums and monuments.
"We think it's a fitting national-level prize to be able to go and see the nation's capital, especially now as the country celebrates 250 years," said Executive Director Corrie Loeffler.
A total of 247 competitors arrived in D.C. for "Bee Week" on Sunday, hailing from all 50 states and as far away as Guam. The competitors ranged from 9 to 15, though most were middle-school age.
Several contestants and family members told NPR they appreciated the chance to explore D.C., with many planning to tour historical sites over the weekend. Though not everyone welcomed the change: 13-year-old Harini Jayakumar of Charlotte, N.C. — who made it to the semifinals of her third and final bee — said she enjoyed the hotel and overall experience more when it was in Maryland.
Spellers who didn't make it to the final still packed into the 3,700-seat venue on Thursday, along with families, journalists and curious locals. Outside the auditorium, they wandered through a timeline of the bee's history, admired a display-case trophy and posed for photos with two human-size, costume-clad bees.
Maryland resident Christy Kim, 35, got hooked after attending a county-level spelling bee last month for fun, as she looked for free activities in the area. She even convinced her friend Maia Owens to travel two hours from Baltimore for the final, promising a wholesome evening. Owens was sold too.
"We honestly might be bee people now," Kim said with a laugh.
Erika Minor, who helped sell t-shirts at the merchandise table, said the most popular item — stuffed bee plushies — sold out on the very first day of competition. Minor, a D.C. local who works for the venue, hadn't paid much attention to the bee in the past, quickly saw what all the buzz was about.
"It is so cool and exciting to see, and also just to talk to, the participants and hear where they came from, and then also to peek my head [in] … and just see how, like, the kids go through the process of remembering how to spell certain words," Minor said, adding that she will follow the contest in the future.
From nine finalists to one champion
All told, there were seven spelling rounds and one multiple-choice vocabulary round, which was added to the onstage competition in 2021 to put less emphasis on rote memorization.
The elimination-style spelling rounds are the bee's bread and butter. Dr. Jaques Bailly, who won in 1980 with the word "elucubrate," has been the head pronouncer for over two decades. He reads each speller one word per round.
Spellers have 90 seconds and the chance to ask for basic information, like origin and definition. If they get it wrong, there is a heavy pause before the head judge, Mary Brooks, rings a bell, an antique family heirloom, and delivers some praise on their way out.
"You are pure joy," she told 12-year-old Logan Bailey, who had gotten the crowd on his side with his shocked, cheerful scamper back to his seat after each successful turn. "As a speller, you absolutely brought happiness to everyone in this room. You come back."
Attendees' stress and suspense were palpable with every letter — as were their relieved sighs and sympathetic gasps as each speller took the mic.
"And you also don't know how to spell these words, so you don't know if they got it right or wrong," said Kim. "So when you hear that bell, it's very discouraging because you know how hard they worked for it. But it's still great because the spellers are really encouraging to one another and the audience is really supportive of the spellers."
All of the competition words come from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary. Some of Thursday's sounded too whimsical to be real — Kadohadacho, quillai, hwyl, Quincke tube — while others sounded too straightforward to be true, like potto, Kolami and cere.
The dreaded bell didn't ring until the third round, which saw four contestants eliminated in a matter of minutes. By the end of the seventh round, only Parikh and Gupta were left — and their success in the subsequent round brought them to the dreaded spell-off.
It's the third time one has decided the spelling bee since it was introduced in 2021.
Harini Logan won the first spell-off, in 2022, by spelling 22 words in 90 seconds. In 2024, Bruhat Soma won with 29.
After his win, Parikh said the word that stumped him the most the entire night was "Bhubaneswar," a city in India.
"I was 99% sure it had a 'B,' but always doubt creeps into your head, especially in the moment," he said. "I knew I just had to stick with my gut and stick with my instincts on that word."
Just as winning spellers get their names in the history books, so too do the winning words.
Some of them may surprise modern-day listeners — like "croissant" in 1970, "luge" in 1980 and "Purim" in 1983. More recent words have been less of the household variety. In the last five years, we've seen: éclaircissement (an explanation), abseil (basically rappelling), psammophile (an organism that thrives in sand), moorhen (a type of water bird) and Murraya (a genus of plants).
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