Spelling Bee 2017: Marocain, gifblaar - words Ananya and Rohan taught us

Indian-American contestants held their steely nerves for 20 rounds until Ananya snaffled the prize

The 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee witnessed yet another exhilarating win when a 12-year-old Indian- American from California, Ananya Vinay, spelt the winning word. Ananya seized every opportunity and eventually got the best of her steely 14-year-old eighth-grader from Edmond, Oklahoma opponent, Rohan Rajeev.

By rattling off a nebulous cluster of mind-boggling words to spell, Ananya made it to the top with a gentle and confident demeanour. She won the prestigious contest after correctly spelling the winning word, marocain. 

Ananya looked stunned, and then burst into tears in her dad's arms #spellingbee pic.twitter.com/d72Hi5eDZ2

— Silvia Killingsworth (@silviakillings) June 2, 2017

The contest that went on for twenty rounds taught us some incredibly unknown words that we can surely add to our vocabulary. Here is a list of some pretty fancy words that you can brandish at the next soiree you attend. 

1. Marocain: The winning word of 2017 US National Spelling Bee contest. It means a dress fabric of ribbed crêpe, made of silk or wool or both. 

2. Gifblaar: A perennial shrub of southern Africa that is deadly poisonous to stock 

3. Wayzgoose: An annual summer dinner or outing held by a printing house for its employees

4. Naassene: A member of an ancient Christian Gnostic sect 

5. Struldbrug: One of a class of imaginary persons who can never die but who are declared dead in law at the age of 80 and live on wretchedly on state expense 

6. Durchkomponiert: Having an individual musical setting for each stanza or strophe-used of a song or aria

Obviously pic.twitter.com/Nw0h1NRFqX

— Silvia Killingsworth (@silviakillings) June 2, 2017

7. Spiegeleisen: an alloy of iron and manganese, used in steel-making