Soft-spoken but confident, Dev Shah asked precise questions on obscure Greek roots, hurriedly uttered his penultimate word, and moved on to the title of Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida whose spelling profession was cut short by the pandemic, then didn’t make it out of the regional bee last 12 months.
This 12 months, he made his way through his highly competitive regional for a third and final attempt at the national title, and ultimately held the trophy above his head as confetti rained down.
His winning word was “psammophile”, a term for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo means sand in Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, in Greek?”
Dev took advantage of the moment by asking for the word to be utilized in a sentence, which he described as a stalling tactic the day before.
He then put his hands on his face as he was declared the winner.
![Dev Shah reacts after spelling the last word correctly to win the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee competition on Thursday.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Spelling_Bee_61501-796d8.jpg?w=1024)
Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, placed second and gave Dev a congratulating hug.
Dev, who previously appeared on Bee in 2019 and 2021, was close with a lot of the other finalists.
“Everybody was in a lot of online bees and a lot of Scripps National Spelling Bees, and I felt like a spark and camaraderie between all of us,” he said. “I’m very grateful and privileged to have been capable of be with them for the last time in spelling.”
Fifteen months ago, there was no certainty that Dev would return.
Last 12 months he had a miserable experience in his regional bee, ending fourth after five hours of spelling in damp, chilly weather at Orlando’s outdoor football stadium.
![Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, placed second and gave Dev a congratulating hug.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/2023-06-02T022332Z_1694765337_RC2MA1AHQCC3_RTRMADP_3_USA-SPELLINGBEE.jpg?w=1024)
“I’d say it took me no less than 4 months to get back on target,” he said. “I just didn’t know if I desired to proceed.”
With the field narrowed right down to Dev and Charlotte, Scripps brought out the buzzer used for additional time, and Dev was momentarily disoriented as he approached the microphone.
“It isn’t a spell, is it?” Dev asked. Saying it wasn’t, he spelled “bathypitotmeter” so fast it’d as well have been the latest example of his humble pride on stage.
“I believe I practiced before the spell day by day.” I knew it could occur and I prepared for anything, so I went into enchantment mode,” said Dev. “But I used to be also afraid of the spell.”
Dev wins over $50,000 in money and prizes and is the twenty second champion in the last 24 years with South Asian heritage.
His father, Deval, a software engineer, immigrated to the United States from India 29 years ago to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
![This year, he made his way through his highly competitive regional for a third and final attempt at the national title, and ultimately held the trophy above his head as confetti rained down.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Spelling_Bee_30557-7695f.jpg?w=1024)
![His father, Deval, a software engineer, immigrated to the United States from India 29 years ago to pursue a master's degree in electrical engineering.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Spelling_Bee_60034-d08fe.jpg?w=1024)
He has since added an MBA from the University of Florida. Dev’s older brother, Neil, is an up-and-coming Yale student.
Deval said his son showed a tremendous memory for words as early as age 3, and Dev spent a few years participating in academic competitions organized by the North South Foundation, a non-profit organization that gives scholarships to children in India.
Bee began in 1925 and is open to students through eighth grade. Spellers qualify by winning regional competitions across the country.
![Dev who previously appeared on Bee in 2019 and 2021 and his winning word was](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Spelling_Bee_02352-c9aeb.jpg?w=1024)
At the start of this 12 months’s national bee, there have been 229 kids on the scene — and every was a multiple-time champion, with 11 million attending the school level.
Whilst the bee is smaller and the field not as deep as in the pre-pandemic years, this 12 months’s finalists have shown impressive depth of information by breaking through sometimes a diabolical list of words.
The choice proved that the competition may very well be fun, digging deeper into the vocabulary than in the past – especially in the second round of ultimate spelling, when Scripps peppered the contestants with short but difficult words reminiscent of “traik” (to get sick, use in Scotland), ” carey” (small to medium sea turtle) and “katuka” (venomous snake from Southeast Asia).
![The 11 finalists stand together after 229 children took to the stage at the start of this year's national bee.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Spelling_Bee_90627-31184.jpg?w=1024)
As the field fell to 4, Shradha Rachamreddy was eliminated on “eagle”, a heraldic term for a variety of small charges stacked to form a boundary at the fringe of the field (she went with “orel”). And the “kelep” – the Central American ant – displaced Surya Kapu (he said “quelep”).
While Scripps’ use of trademarks and geographic names can sometimes anger spelling traditionalists who wish to see children reveal mastery of linguistic roots and patterns—and even exceptions to those patterns—Scripps explained that, with the exception of words deemed archaic or antiquated, each entry in Merriam-Webster’s complete dictionary is honest.