i know the winning word!

i was watching the spelling bee championship and realized how really that my vocabulary is still not big enough. here are some of the words from the last few rounds of the bout...

simnel - a crisp bread made of fine wheat flour

passacaglia - a slow, dignified dance of Spanish origin

apodyterium - the apartment at the entrance of the baths, or in the palestra, where one stripped; a dressing room

axolotl - an amphibian of the salamander tribe found in the elevated lakes of Mexico

goombay - the style of calypso music or rhythm popular in the Bahamas

iliopsoas - the great flexor muscle of the hip joint, divisible into two parts, the iliac and great psoas

xebec - a small, three-masted vessel of the Mediterranean, formerly much used by corsairs, now employed to some extent in commerce

grisaille - monochromatic painting in shades of gray

huisache - a tropical and subtropical New World shrub, Acacia farnesiana, of the legume family, having clusters of fragrant, deep-yellow flower heads

neufchatel - a soft, white cheese similar to cream cheese, made from whole or partly skimmed milk in Neufchâtel, a town in N France

cretonne - a heavy cotton material in colorfully printed designs, used esp. for drapery and slipcovers

caerphilly - a mild, white, crumbly, medium-hard cheese, originally made in Wales

jacqueminot - a half-hardy, deep crimson rose of the remontant class; -- so named after General Jacqueminot, of France

reredos - a screen or a decorated part of the wall behind an altar in a church

isagoge - an introduction, esp. a scholarly introduction to a field of study or research

sophrosyne - moderation; discretion; prudence

menhir - an upright monumental stone standing either alone or with others, as in an alignment, found chiefly in Cornwall and Brittany

and the winning word...

laodicean - lukewarm or indifferent, esp. in religion, as were the early Christians of Laodicea.

if you know your bible, you know that word.

word.