[Ads-l] WOTY candidate: "octochamp"

[Laurence Horn]

‘One of eight who tie for a championship’.  An auto-coinage by the eight winners of last night's annual Scripps Spelling Bee; unclear whether it should include a hyphen.

"Three of the champions are from the Dallas area, perhaps the most competitive region in the country: Sohum, Abhijay and Rohan. New Jersey had two champs, in Christopher and Shruthika. Rishik, from San Jose, California, was the only one of the self-proclaimed “octo-champs” from the West Coast."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-spelling-bee-winners_n_5cf0eb74e4b0e346ce7c312c

Maybe it won’t have the necessary staying power, but…. 

If you google it, you’ll come across a different kind of octochamp, referring to a competitor (or team) that has won eight times (eight heats, eight different championships, etc.), in particular with reference to the British TV game show “Countdown”.  Clearly a case of polysemy.

LH

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