Nineteen of New Zealand's best spellers battled it out at the 2018 New Zealand Spelling Bee grand final in Wellington on Saturday.

Marlborough Boys' College pupil George Turner clinched the title with his correct spelling of 'frankincense'.

The 19 finalists rattled off the spellings of nearly 170 words before Turner was left the last one standing.

ROSA WOODS/STUFF Marlborough Boys College Year 10 student George Turner, 14, took home the champion title at this year's NZ Spelling Bee finals.

The final round saw his last three rivals, year 10 student Ben White of Trident High School in Whakatane, year 9 Dunedin student Luca Holloway of Kavanagh College,and Christchurch year 10 student Bernadette Barrett, who is home-schooled, defeated by the words 'mistral', 'melliferous' and 'ignominy' respectively.

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George was the runner-up in last year's final and narrowly missed out on a win after misspelling the tiebreaker word, 'pusillanimous', which means showing a lack of courage or determination.

"It was great to be able to come back and win this year and finally finish it off," he said.

ROSA WOODS/STUFF Champion speller George Turner, centre, with this year's three runners-up tied in second place, from left, Luca Holloway, Ben White, and Bernadette Barrett.

Accepting his trophy in Wellington's City Gallery auditorium, he thanked the event sponsors, his parents, and fellow competitors.

Along with a large trophy the year 10 student will also take home $5000, which he hopes to use to buy a laptop.

Pronouncer Owen Scott said the finalists were "the most talented bunch I've ever come across".

The spelling bee finalists were given 200 words to learn in the week leading up to the competition, which would be used in the first three rounds.

"After that it could be anything," runner-up Ben White said.

But George said he had not seen the second half of the list until three days before the competition, because his mum had forgot to scroll down the list.

"So I had to spend the last three days cramming really quickly."

George's father, David Turner, hopes George's win inspires others to take part in the event.

George has had cerebral palsy since birth, leaving him partially numb down his right side.

"With George, part of his brain being killed through his motor side, the other side sort of developed quicker to try and compensate and so I think that's why he does so well at english language stuff and memorising."

The competition, in its 14th year, has had an equal number of girl and boy winners.

The rigorous competition begins with a written classroom test, followed by six regional semi-finals held around New Zealand in which the top 200 spellers competed for a spot in the final.

The finalists won their places out of a field of hundreds of Year 9 and 10 students, from more than 100 secondary schools and colleges around New Zealand.

New Zealand Spelling Bee founder Janet Lucas said the calibre of students in the final was exceptional.

"There were moments I thought we would have nine runners-up, as the field was so strong."

* An earlier version of this story said Luca Holloway misspelled maleficent. She actually misspelled 'melliferous'.