Could You Win The National Spelling Championship?

The ultimate spelling quiz.

Do you have what it takes to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

Each of the words in this quiz was a championship-winning word in the last 15 years. (The real championship spellers, of course, do not have the advantage of multiple choice. Also, they are children.) Where possible, the audio was taken from the spelling bee footage itself; in cases where it was not, we used clips from the dictionary or an online pronunciation service.

Click the play button on the gifs to hear the words pronounced, and GOOD LUCK.

1.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via reddit.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    feuilleton

    This word is for the francophiles — and for Ansun Sujoe, who spelled it correctly in the 2014 spelling bee.

2.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    knaidel

    It's a Passover treat and also the word that won the 2013 Scripps Spelling Bee for Arvind Mahankali.

3.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    guetapens

    This word means a trick or a lure, and it won the championship for Snigdha Nandipati in 2012.

4.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    cymotrichous

    This word means "wavy hair," and it won the championship for Sukanya Roy in 2011.

5.

Merriam-Webster / Via merriam-webster.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    serrefine

    Blame the French for the extra letters. Evan M. O'Dorney won on this word in 2007. It means "a small spring forceps used for approximating the edges of a wound, or for temporarily closing an artery during surgery."

6.

Emma Saying / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    ursprache

    This word means a hypothetically reconstructed language, which makes sense, actually, because that's what the spelling looks like. It won the championship for Kerry Close in 2006.

7.

Merriam-Webster / Via merriam-webster.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    appogiatura

    Maybe this word has extra letters in it because it means "a note of extra embellishment" to musicians. It won the championship for Anurag Kashyap in 2005.

8.

Merriam-Webster / Via merriam-webster.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    autochthonous

    This word, which won the Bee for David Tidmarsh in 2004, means "indigenous."

9.

Emma Saying / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    pococurante

    This word means "indifferent" and was the winning word in 2003 for Sai R. Gunturi.

10.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    laodicean

    This word, which means "lukewarm or halfhearted, especially with respect to religion or politics," won Kavya Shivashankar the championship in 2009.

11.

Scripps National Spelling Bee / Via youtube.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    Anamika Veeramani won the national championship with this word, meaning "a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery," in 2010.

12.

Merriam-Webster / Via merriam-webster.com
  1. How do you spell this word?

    Correct! 
    Wrong! 

    This was the winning word for Sameer Mishra in 2008. It means "a reward or recompense."

13.

In an earlier version of this quiz, there wasn't a correct option for number 7. (Clearly, we wouldn't have made the cut.)

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