On Thursday evening Sukanya Roy, a 14-year-old from northeastern Pennsylvania, correctly spelled “cymotrichous”—an adjective that means having wavy hair—to capture the top prize at the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

When she finished spelling the word, Sukanya, who said she knew the correct answer, reportedly broke into a smile. The eighth-grader, who also speaks Bengali, beat 274 other spellers in 20 rounds of spelling action.

The action started on Tuesday, when all the spellers took this 25-word written test. Their scores on this portion carried over into Rounds Two and Three, after which the field was whittled to 41 spellers. That’s when the semifinals begin.

Here’s the list of words that Sukanya spelled correctly, beginning with Round Two:

• Croissant
• Execration
• Hesthogenous
• Amphistylar
• Watteau
• Thalassocracy
• Psephomancy
• Pyopoiesis
• Völkerwanderung
• Rapakivi
• lakatoi
• zwischenspiel
• Preux
• Sangsue
• Lekane
• Naumkeag
• Orgeat
• Periscii
• Cymotrichous

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