Wild and weird winning words through spelling bee history

CLEVELAND - Thursday night a new spelling bee champion will be crowned. That also means a new word will be picked from dictionary obscurity to spelling bee lore.

Words of all sounds, sizes and syllable patterns have propelled kids to a title in the more than eight decades of the bee.

Knack and interning were winning words in the 1930s. But the complexity of championship words has grown over the years.

Here are some of the weird and wild winning words since the bee's inception in 1925:

1928 - albumen (noun): the white of the egg of certain animals, especially birds and reptiles, consisting mostly of the protein albumin.

1960 - eudaemonic (adj.): producing happiness and well-being

1967 - Chihuahua (noun): A small dog of a smooth-haired, large-eyed breed originating in Mexico.

1979 - maculature (noun):  an impression made from an intaglio engraved plate to remove ink from the recessed areas

1986 - odontalgia (noun): toothache

1990 - fibranne (noun): a fabric made of spun-rayon yarn

1994 - antediluvian (adj.): extremely old-fashioned or outdated

1996 - vivisepulture (noun): the act or practice of burying alive

2005 - appoggiatura (noun): A grace note performed before a note of the melody and falling on the beat

2008 - guerdon (noun): a reward; (verb): give a reward to

2011 - cymotrichous (adj.): having wavy hair

To see the full list of winning words and bee champions, click here: on.wews.com/NjrMAd