A Francis Parker School seventh grader misspelled the word "kerystic" in a national spelling bee Thursday morning, eliminating her from the fifth and final round of the competition.
Snigdha Nandipati,13, attends Francis Parker School and was one of 41 kids to make it to the semi-finals. A total of 275 students competed in the bee.
In the final round, Nandipati asked for the definition of kerystic twice, according to the Union Tribune. She then repeated the word, which means "of or pertaining to preaching," and spelled it with and "i" instead of a "y." After the buzzer indicated she had misspelled the word, she grimaced and stepped off the stage.
In the semi-final round, she spelled "avifauna" which means birds of a specific region or period and "masala" which is a seasoning used in Indian cooking.
Nandipati also won the Long Beach Spelling Bee in 2009.
"My wife and I are very proud of Snigdha and all of her hard work," said Snigdha's father Krishnarao Nandipati. "She studied over 20,000 words for this competition. She deserves this."
