Kavya Shivashankar wins 2009 National Spelling Bee

The national championship of the American school favorite the Spelling Bee has been run for another year, with 13 year old Kavya Shivashankar taking out the title.

Kavya Shivashankar, who was competing for the fourth straight year, entered the competition as a favorite, and she didn’t disappoint. Words she managed to spell correctly (and don’t ask us for the meaning of any of them) included hydrargyrum, blancmange and baignoire. Her final word to win the championship was Laodicean.

Some of the other words featured in the championship round (also don’t ask us to pronounce them either) were antonomasia, bouquiniste, oriflamme, guayabera, isagoge and sophrosyne.

Shivashankar, a student at the California Trail Junior High School takes home over $40,000 in cash and prizes.