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Westminster eighth-grader Aditi Muthukumar was among eight spellers to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals on Thursday.
OXON HILL, Md. — Colorado speller Aditi Muthukumar was knocked out of the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals Thursday night after misspelling a word in the 13th round.
Aditi, or #Speller31 on X, stumbled on the word “Lillooet,” a word of unknown origin. She incorrectly spelled the word “lillowet,” knocking her out of the competition.
In the semifinals on Wednesday, the Westminster eighth-grader correctly spelled “myrmecoxene” to become one of eight contestants to reach the last phase of the competition.
Wednesday morning began with 148 spellers. By the end of the first quarterfinal round, there were 59 left, and 46 of those got through a vocabulary round to reach the semifinals. By the end of the day, eight finalists remained. The winner receives a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes.
Aditi was one of two Coloradans to compete in the spelling bee this year. She was a returning competitor who tied for 74th place in last year’s spelling bee. She attends Hulstrom K-8 in Northglenn and is sponsored by The Denver Post.
According to her bio, she’s an avid reader who also enjoys writing short stories, bike-riding, performing Indian classical dance and playing the flute. She’s president of her student council and vice president of her school’s National Junior Honor Society chapter.
Starting in the quarterfinals, the bee’s word panel can use any of the more than half a million words in Webster’s Unabridged dictionary, plus some geographical names that aren’t even listed in that volume. While the panel tries to maintain a consistent level of difficulty in each round, it can vary from word to word.
Learning as many words as possible isn’t a foolproof approach.
Aditi said she tried to address her weaknesses on words derived from French or from the many languages of the Indian subcontinent. On the first day of the competition, she said she expected to confront a word she doesn’t know while competing in her final bee.
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