LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Eighth graders from Diamond Bar and Anaheim Hills were eliminated in the fourth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Wednesday.
Justin L. Tran of Diamond Bar misspelled flong, a sheet (as of several layers of tissue paper superposed on a sheet of heavier paper) used for making a stereotype matrix, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. He spelled it flaung.
Aaron Lim, an eighth-grader from Anaheim Hills, competing two spellers later, misspelled ovination, a noun meaning introduction of sheep-pox virus locally into the body as formerly practiced to induce immunity or reduce the severity of the disease. He spelled it ovanation.
Aaron was the seventh speller in the round and the fourth to misspell his or her word.
The original field consisted of 231 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, the Bahamas, Germany and Ghana. There were 59 spellers eliminated in the first round, 33 in the second and 19 in the third, reducing the field to 121 for the fourth round.
The quarterfinals are scheduled to continue until 9:45 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, followed by the semifinals from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The 10 to 12 finalists will be known around 3:30 p.m. PDT.
The finals are Thursday.
Justin advanced to the quarterfinals by correctly spelling gaseous, an adjective meaning having the form of or being gas, in Tuesday’s third round at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
Aaron advanced by correctly spelling muckraker, someone who searches out and publicly exposes real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business, in the third round.
Justin, a 13-year-old who attends Chaparral Middle School, correctly spelled renminbi, the official currency of the People’s Republic of China, in Tuesday’s first round, then correctly answered his second-round multiple-choice word meaning question, “Something described as reverberant:” selecting “tends to repeat in echoes.”
In Tuesday’s first round, Aaron correctly spelled cephalopod, a noun meaning any of a class of marine mollusks who move by expelling water from a tubular siphon under the head and have a group of muscular usually sucker- bearing arms around the front of the head, highly developed eyes, and usually a sac containing ink which is ejected for defense or concealment.
The 14-year-old student at El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim correctly answered his word-meaning question, “Another word for seraphic is:” correctly selecting sublime.
With the bee limited to students in eighth grade or below, this was the final bee for both Justin and Aaron.
No contestant from Los Angeles or Orange counties has ever won the bee.