14-Year-Old Dev Shah Spells His Way to Victory at National Spelling Bee!

By Elena Gilbert On Jun 2, 2023

Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, is a new Scripps National Spelling Bee winner. The youngster defeated Charlotte Walsh, an eighth-grader from Arlington, Virginia, by accurately spelling the term “psammophile,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “an organism that prefers or thrives in sandy soils or areas.”

Shah commented after being named the winner, “It’s surreal. “I don’t know if it’s settled in. My legs are still shaking!” Walsh spelled “daviely” incorrectly just before Shah’s final opportunity to speak, allowing Shah to step forward and claim the win.

Take a look at the tweet below, Recently, Scripps National Spelling Bee shared a Tweet related to the official statement:

UnBEElievable! #Speller36 Dev Shah representing the SNSB Region One Bee in Largo, Florida is the Champion of the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee. His winning word? Psammophile. 🐝 #spellingbee pic.twitter.com/ebM8jUU6xZ

— Scripps National Spelling Bee (@ScrippsBee) June 2, 2023

Shah, who won the $50,000 top prize and became the 95th Scripps Spelling Bee winner, had to correctly spell 15 terms on Thursday. On Thursday, he was one of the 11 finalists.

A third contestant was removed in the second phase when spellers are presented with a multiple-choice question concerning the definition of the term after two competitors were dismissed in the first round for using incorrect spellings.

Six more students were eliminated in the third, fourth, and fifth rounds, including Utah’s Surya Kapu, the only repeat finalist in this year’s bee.

The final contest was between Shah and Walsh. Walsh misspelled her last word of the evening, “daviely,” while Shah correctly spelled his word, “bathypitotmeter.”

This year’s tournament did not result in a “spell-off,” a procedure introduced the previous year in response to a tremendous eight-way tie for the championship in 2019.

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Each participant has 90 seconds to spell a string of words in the spell-off, which would have been held this year if a winner hadn’t been determined by the bee’s one hour and 55-minute point.

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