2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee runner-up Faizan Zaki wins 2025 title
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Texas 13-year-old Faizan Zaki receives his Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy on Thursday. Photo: Courtesy of Scripps National Spelling Bee/Facebook
Faizan Zaki won the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday by correctly spelling "éclaircissement" on the 100th anniversary of the event.
The big picture: It's a remarkable comeback for the 13-year-old 6th-grader from Dallas, who came second in last year's competition.
Zoom in: Zaki, a self-confessed "linguistics nerd" who's currently learning French, is a four-time Spelling Bee competitor, per a post on the contest's site.
- "I was amazed when I won my first school bee. Then I just kept winning," Zaki said, per the Spelling Bee.
State of play: The first Spelling Bee featured just nine contestants and was won in 1925 by 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser, of Louisville, Kentucky, who correctly spelled "gladiolus."
- A hundred years later, "243 spellers earned their spots as national competitors by advancing through regional spelling bees," per a Spelling Bee post.
- This year's contestants competed against students "representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe," according to the post.
- "Spellers also will represent five countries outside the U.S.: the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Kuwait and Nigeria."
Go deeper: Spelling Bee's evolving word list
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
