Indian-American 14-year-old boy crowned US National Spelling Bee champion; check pics

Dev Shah, a 14-year-old Indian-American boy from Largo, Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, June 1, nailing the word 'psammophile', meaning an organism that thrives in sandy soils, in the 15th round of the contest's finals

All pics credit: @ScrippsBee

He edged out fellow eighth-grader Charlotte Walsh, 14, from Arlington, Virginia, who finished in second place after she misspelled "daviely," a Scottish-rooted word for listlessly, in the 14th round

Shah, a student at Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School, had correctly, and swiftly, spelt "bathypitotmeter" in the 14th round, but under spelling bee rules needed to land one more word to be declared the winner

Shah, who was crowned champion in a hail of confetti before being joined on stage by his parents and other relatives, takes home $50,000 cash from E.W. Scripps Co, the bee's sponsor, plus further monetary prizes and reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster

The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary is the official dictionary of the competition. The 2022 show was broadcast on ION and Bounce, both networks owned by a Scripps subsidiary