Washington ? “Appoggiatura” was music to 13-year-old Anurag Kashyap’s ears. Correctly spelling the word that means melodic tone, he clinched the 2005 national spelling bee championship.

An eighth-grader in Poway, Calif., Anurag ran into his father’s arms and burst into tears. He said he felt “just pure happiness.”

Beating out 272 other competitors, Anurag won Thursday in the 19th round of the 78th annual National Scripps Spelling Bee. His prize: $30,000 in cash, scholarships and books.

During the day, Anurag whizzed through relatively common words such as “prosciutto,” an Italian dry-cured ham, and difficult ones such as “sphygmomanometer,” an instrument for measuring blood pressure.

He sometimes spelled so fast that only the judges appeared to be able to follow him.

Anurag, a straight-A student at Meadowbrook Middle School – his favorite subject is science – tied for 47th in last year’s spelling bee. That experience “helped me to know what I should study to : like, win this thing,” he said.

Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, of Pleasanton, Calif.

Anurag Kashyap, 13, of Poway, Calif., won the national spelling bee in the 19th round with his fast and confident spelling of the word appoggiatura.

They each get $4,000.

“I’m disappointed,” Samir said afterward, adding that he will try again next year.

Aliya, who will begin high school next year and be ineligible for the contest, said she was happy with how well she did.