Sai was awarded $12,000, he clinched the award by correctly spelling the final word "procourante" which means "a careless or indifferent or nonchalant person."

Sai Gunturi from Dallas, Texas, was among the 251 finalists out of the 10 million students in the 76th Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee on Thursday.

"Actually, I started studying in fourth grade and then I guess it's kind of like cumulative study all the way up to here," said Sai after surviving the gruelling, 15-round contest by spelling such words as "rhathymia", "dipnoous" and "voussoir".

Sai had tied for a second place last year, 16th place in 2001 and 32nd place in 2000.

The spelling event opened on Wednesday with a field of 251 youngsters, ranging in age from 8 to 15. Each got one word to spell; 175 got them right. The exam narrowed the field to 84, who made the cut by missing 10 words or fewer.

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