Words like moccasin, accredit, neuralgia and equilibrium challenged some of the state's best spellers at the New South Wales Premier's Spelling Bee.
The final featured 60 of the state's primary school students, who emerged from a starting pool of 165,000.
The students were in a junior category from years three and four and a senior category including years five and six.
The event had been cancelled for the last two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Juniors tangled with tough words including rehabilitate, intermittent, resumption and incumbent.
Seniors had to navigate words like subservient, auxiliary, curvature and signatory.
Subtitles fuel champ
Junior competition winner Saarth Deo from Wentworthville Public School honed his skills by reading the subtitles on Indian films.
"All of the movies I watch are in foreign language and I don't understand most of it, so that's why I put [on] subtitles," Saarth said.
"I actually like reading them."
His parents say this helped him develop a photographic memory of words since he was three.
"He used to like matching the word they are saying with the subtitle," his mother Neha Deo said.
'Extremely difficult'
Wilson Han from St Ives North Public School took out the senior competition, where the word "askance" was the decider.
Wilson practiced with a game in which his family would chose a random word from the dictionary for him to spell.
"It was extremely difficult because they choose the hardest words that I had never heard of," Wilson said.
Despite expecting very difficult words, he was buzzing on the day of competition.
"I was very excited," Wilson said.
"I was dancing and my parents had to tell me to stop."
Floods no barrier
Among those challenging Wilson for the title was Rafael Marsh, whose journey to Sydney made spelling difficult words seem like a cakewalk.
The nine-year-old and his family had to travel through flood-affected areas as they made their from Condobolin, in the state's Central West.
They also drove through a cloud of mosquitoes so thick Rafael said it the sun was blocked out.
Adding to the misery, their 6:30am flight from Parkes Airport was cancelled, delaying their departure by four hours.
Nightly preparation
Students were given a sheet of words to prepare for the initial rounds and going over difficult words became a nightly routine for some.
Eight-year-old Nila Dinesh from Girraween Public School reads the words to her mother, who then writes down the words she gets wrong.
"My mum writes in a book and I look at the book and write the words five times in another book," Nila said.
Lidcombe Public School year five student Rafa Sapungan made it to the final using video recordings to listen to himself say words he needed to learn to spell.
A very busy year
Finalist Aziah Phoenix-Cox's Northern Rivers home was without power for a week in February due to the flooding in the Northern Rivers.
It took three months for the family's internet connection to be restored.
Aziah, who is in year six at The Pocket Public School, looks at the spelling sheet, then turns it over and tries to spell the words he thought were tricky.
"Then I check it to see if I've got it right and if I got it right I'm like, 'Yay!'" he said.
Positive attitude
Nine-year-old Heeji Park traces out the word out on her hand when she is spelling.
She doesn't try to memorise words, but tries to think about the spelling when she hears a word.
"Some words they have special spelling and before I say it out loud I think about it in my head," Heeji said.
"Then I read it out."
Heeji did her best to go into the competition with the right attitude.
"I don't think about getting a word wrong — you always have to be positive," Heeji said.
