Two hundred eighty-eight champion spellers competed in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., a new record.

Most of the spellers were from the United States, with a small showing from other locations such as Ghana, Jamaica, New Zealand, and South Korea.

[1] Sriram Hathwar, who would be a co-winner of the 2014 bee six years later, set a new record as the youngest ever participant to date, only a month past his 8th birthday.

[2] The winner was Sameer Mishra, a 13-year-old eighth grader at West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School, in Indiana.

[3] In rounds 3 through 15, Mishra spelled "demitasse", "quadrat", "diener", "hyssop", "macédoine", "basenji", "numnah", "chorion", "nacarat", "sinicize", "hyphaeresis", "taleggio" and "esclandre" correctly, in that order.