Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev Shah asked pointed questions about obscure Greek roots, was quick to utter his penultimate word and made it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee headline on Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, had his spelling career interrupted by the pandemic and then failed to make it out of his regional bee last year. He topped his highly competitive regional this year for his third and final national title attempt, ending up holding the trophy over his head as confetti rained down.
His winning word was “psammophila,” a platter for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo means sand, Greek?” she asked. Phile, what does love mean, Greek? He drank in the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he had described a day earlier as a delaying tactic. He then covered his face with his hands and was declared the winner.
Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, came in second.
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