This was the word that crowned eight-year-old Grace Du the best junior speller in NSW at Wednesday's Premier's Spelling Bee.

For more than two hours, the class of 42 finalists from years three and four battled it out in the Eugene Goosens Hall at the ABC studios in Ultimo.

Among the list of words that quickly culled the students to the final three were "abdicate", "neurology" and "stringent".

While some students were reduced to tears as they were eliminated, Grace, dwarfed by the tall microphone, wowed the crowd and conquered her competitors with her confident spellings of words including "psychiatry" and "abdicate."

"Cardiothoracic was the hardest word," said Grace.

"I'm happy."

But the Keiraville Public School student did not win without a fight.

Runners-up Zhan Wei Koh from Lindfield Public School and Mica Krzyzanowski from Coogee Public School made it a nail-biting finish.

In the final round Mica left the "g" out of "impugn".

"I'm only a little bit disappointed. I think I did quite well overall," Mica said

"I am second best in NSW and that's good enough for me".

The Premier's Spelling Bee was introduced in 2004 as a fun way for primary students to engage with spelling but gets harder every year, said judge Lloyd Cameron from the Department of Education and Communities. 

According to Cameron, it is increasingly important that we encourage students of the importance of spelling in the age of spell-check. 

"These young children don't have to rely on adult cop outs, they are going to actually learn how to spell these words," Mr Cameron said.

"I think that is great for the future, if people are more confident and they understand the idiosyncrasies of the English language and they can embrace them ".

Although Grace's parents, Rong Bo Du and Qiong Riu, said Grace's linguistic ability was primarily a natural talent, even she said she had to practise. 

"First I reviewed the words and then my Mum tested me," Grace said.  

Each night Grace said she tried to learn approximately 100 new words.

Mrs Rui said she was very proud of her daughter's achievements. 

"We are very excited for her. A lot of the words I can't even pronounce, she did it all by herself," she said. 

Mr Cameron said he was very impressed with the talent of the student this year, and looked forward to next year's competitors.

"I am very impressed. Those kind of words would not have been necessary a few years ago, let's put it that way. There is so much more involvement now. I think schools take the whole process a lot more seriously, certainly I think parental impact is vital," Mr Cameron said.  

More than 130,000 students from public schools took part this year. 

smh.com.au