Our annual look at the words that challenged the Scripps Spelling Bee champs to see how many are recognized by the spell check in Microsoft Word. Again in 2025 Word was beaten by some very clever 14 year olds.
Here’s a selection of the last round words from the 2025 Bee, starting with the winning word.
This year, Microsoft Word gave the same spelling responses in US, UK and Australian English
Microsoft Word’s score: 12 out of 20
Here’s how Word ‘scored’ vs. the Spelling Bee champs in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 , 2014 and 2013.
Our purpose isn’t to make fun of Word (that’s a little bonus <g> ). It does show that Word’s online dictionary isn’t the ‘last word’ (pun intended) on what’s a legitimate or correctly spelled word.
Just because there’s a red squiggly line doesn’t mean the word is wrong.
2023 Spelling Bee champs vs Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word vs the 2021 Words of the Champions
More changes for Word’s Spelling and Grammar
