Big word in english language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of a word and of length.

Words may be derived naturally from the language’s roots or formed by coinage and construction. Additionally, comparisons are complicated because place names may be considered words, technical terms may be arbitrarily long, and the addition of suffixes and prefixes may extend the length of words to create grammatically correct but unused or novel words.

The length of a word may also be understood in multiple ways. Most commonly, length is based on orthography (conventional spelling rules) and counting the number of written letters. Alternate, but less common, approaches include phonology (the spoken language) and the number of phonemes (sounds).

Word	Letters	Meaning	Claim	Dispute
methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl…isoleucine	189,819	The chemical composition of titin, the largest known protein	Longest known word overall by magnitudes. Attempts to say the entire word have taken two[1] to three and a half hours.[2]	Technical; not in dictionary; whether this should actually be considered a word is disputed
methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamyl…serine	1,909	The chemical name of E. coli TrpA (P0A877)	Longest published word[3]	Technical
lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsano…pterygon	183	A fictional dish of food	Longest word coined by a major author,[4] the longest word ever to appear in literature[5]	Contrived nonce word; not in dictionary; Ancient Greek transliteration
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis	45	The disease silicosis	Longest word in a major dictionary[6]	Contrived coinage to make it the longest word; technical, but only mentioned and never actually used in communication
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious	34	Unclear in source work, has been cited as a nonsense word	Made popular in the Mary Poppins film and musical[7]	Contrived coinage
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism	30	A hereditary medical disorder	Longest non-contrived word in a major dictionary[8]	Technical
antidisestablishmentarianism	28	The political position of opposing disestablishment	Longest non-contrived and nontechnical word[9]	Not all dictionaries accept it due to lack of usage.[10]
honorificabilitudinitatibus	27	The state of being able to achieve honors	Longest word in Shakespeare’s works; longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels[11]	Latin

Major dictionaries

The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters), a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles,^[12] specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis. The word was deliberately coined to be the longest word in English, and has since been used^{[citation needed]} in a close approximation of its originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to its claim.^[6]

The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary does not contain antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters), as the editors found no widespread, sustained usage of the word in its original meaning. The longest word in that dictionary is electroencephalographically (27 letters).^[13]

The longest non-technical word in major dictionaries is flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication at 29 letters. Consisting of a series of Latin words meaning «nothing» and defined as «the act of estimating something as worthless»; its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741.^[14][15][16]

Ross Eckler has noted that most of the longest English words are not likely to occur in general text, meaning non-technical present-day text seen by casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use an unusually long word. According to Eckler, the longest words likely to be encountered in general text are deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries, with 22 letters each.^[17]

A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is uncharacteristically, at 20 letters.^[18]

The word internationalization is abbreviated «i18n», the embedded number representing the number of letters between the first and the last.^[19][20][21]

Creations of long words

Coinages

In his play Assemblywomen (Ecclesiazousae), the ancient Greek comedic playwright Aristophanes created a word of 171 letters (183 in the transliteration below), which describes a dish by stringing together its ingredients:

Henry Carey’s farce Chrononhotonthologos (1743) holds the opening line: «Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?»

Thomas Love Peacock put these creations into the mouth of the phrenologist Mr. Cranium in his 1816 book Headlong Hall: osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous (44 characters) and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51 characters).

James Joyce made up nine 100-letter words plus one 101-letter word in his novel Finnegans Wake, the most famous of which is Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. Appearing on the first page, it allegedly represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. As it appears nowhere else except in reference to this passage, it is generally not accepted as a real word. Sylvia Plath made mention of it in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, when the protagonist was reading Finnegans Wake.

«Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious», the 34-letter title of a song from the movie Mary Poppins, does appear in several dictionaries, but only as a proper noun defined in reference to the song title. The attributed meaning is «a word that you say when you don’t know what to say.» The idea and invention of the word is credited to songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman.

Agglutinative constructions

The English language permits the legitimate extension of existing words to serve new purposes by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. This is sometimes referred to as agglutinative construction. This process can create arbitrarily long words: for example, the prefixes pseudo (false, spurious) and anti (against, opposed to) can be added as many times as desired. More familiarly, the addition of numerous «great»s to a relative, such as «great-great-great-great-grandparent», can produce words of arbitrary length. In musical notation, an 8192nd note may be called a semihemidemisemihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver.

Antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest common example of a word formed by agglutinative construction.

Technical terms

A number of scientific naming schemes can be used to generate arbitrarily long words.

The IUPAC nomenclature for organic chemical compounds is open-ended, giving rise to the 189,819-letter chemical name Methionylthreonylthreonyl…isoleucine for the protein also known as titin, which is involved in striated muscle formation. In nature, DNA molecules can be much bigger than protein molecules and therefore potentially be referred to with much longer chemical names. For example, the wheat chromosome 3B contains almost 1 billion base pairs,^[22] so the sequence of one of its strands, if written out in full like Adenilyladenilylguanilylcystidylthymidyl…, would be about 8 billion letters long. The longest published word, Acetylseryltyrosylseryliso…serine, referring to the coat protein of a certain strain of tobacco mosaic virus (P03575), is 1,185 letters long, and appeared in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service in 1964 and 1966.^[23] In 1965, the Chemical Abstracts Service overhauled its naming system and started discouraging excessively long names. In 2011, a dictionary broke this record with a 1909-letter word describing the trpA protein (P0A877).^[3]

John Horton Conway and Landon Curt Noll developed an open-ended system for naming powers of 10, in which one sexmilliaquingentsexagintillion, coming from the Latin name for 6560, is the name for 10^3(6560+1) = 10¹⁹⁶⁸³. Under the long number scale, it would be 10^6(6560) = 10³⁹³⁶⁰.

Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis is sometimes cited as the longest binomial name—it is a kind of amphipod. However, this name, proposed by B. Dybowski, was invalidated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature in 1929 after being petitioned by Mary J. Rathbun to take up the case.^[24]

Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis is the longest accepted binomial name for an organism. It is a bacterium found in soil collected at Llan­fair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­ (discussed below). Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides is the longest accepted binomial name for any animal, or any organism visible with the naked eye. It is a species of soldier fly.^[25] The genus name Parapropalaehoplophorus (a fossil glyptodont, an extinct family of mammals related to armadillos) is two letters longer, but does not contain a similarly long species name.

Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic, at 52 letters, describing the spa waters at Bath, England, is attributed to Dr. Edward Strother (1675–1737).^[26] The word is composed of the following elements:

• Aequeo: equal (Latin, aequo^[27])
• Salino: containing salt (Latin, salinus)
• Calcalino: calcium (Latin, calx)
• Ceraceo: waxy (Latin, cera)
• Aluminoso: alumina (Latin)
• Cupreo: from «copper»
• Vitriolic: resembling vitriol

Notable long words

Place names

The longest officially recognized place name in an English-speaking country is Taumata­whakatangihanga­koauau­o­tamatea­turi­pukaka­piki­maunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu (85 letters), which is a hill in New Zealand. The name is in the Māori language. A widely recognized version of the name is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85 letters), which appears on the signpost at the location (see the photo on this page). In Māori, the digraphs ng and wh are each treated as single letters.

In Canada, the longest place name is Dysart, Dudley, Harcourt, Guilford, Harburn, Bruton, Havelock, Eyre and Clyde, a township in Ontario, at 61 letters or 68 non-space characters.^[28]

The 58-letter name Llan­fair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­gogery­chwyrn­drob­wlll­lanty­silio­gogo­goch is the name of a town on Anglesey, an island of Wales. In terms of the traditional Welsh alphabet, the name is only 51 letters long, as certain digraphs in Welsh are considered as single letters, for instance ll, ng and ch. It is generally agreed, however, that this invented name, adopted in the mid-19th century, was contrived solely to be the longest name of any town in Britain. The official name of the place is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, commonly abbreviated to Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.

The longest non-contrived place name in the United Kingdom which is a single non-hyphenated word is Cottonshopeburnfoot (19 letters) and the longest which is hyphenated is Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe (29 characters).

The longest place name in the United States (45 letters) is Char­gogga­gogg­man­chau­ggagogg­chau­buna­gunga­maugg, a lake in Webster, Massachusetts. It means «Fishing Place at the Boundaries – Neutral Meeting Grounds» and is sometimes facetiously translated as «you fish your side of the water, I fish my side of the water, nobody fishes the middle». The lake is also known as Webster Lake.^[29] The longest hyphenated names in the U.S. are Winchester-on-the-Severn, a town in Maryland, and Washington-on-the-Brazos, a notable place in Texas history. The longest single-word town names in the U.S. are Kleinfeltersville, Pennsylvania and Mooselookmeguntic, Maine.

The longest official geographical name in Australia is Ma­mungku­kumpu­rang­kunt­junya.^[30] It has 26 letters and is a Pitjantjatjara word meaning «where the Devil urinates».^[31]

Liechtenstein is the longest country name with single name in English. The second longest country name with single name in English is Turkmenistan. There are longer country names if one includes ones with spaces.

Personal names

Guinness World Records formerly contained a category for longest personal name used.

• From about 1975 to 1985, the recordholder was Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfe­schlegelstein­hausenberger­dorffvoraltern­waren­gewissenhaft­schaferswessen­schafewaren­wohlgepflege­und­sorgfaltigkeit­beschutzen­von­angreifen­durch­ihrraubgierigfeinde­welche­voraltern­zwolftausend­jahres­vorandieerscheinen­wander­ersteer­dem­enschderraumschiff­gebrauchlicht­als­sein­ursprung­von­kraftgestart­sein­lange­fahrt­hinzwischen­sternartigraum­auf­der­suchenach­diestern­welche­gehabt­bewohnbar­planeten­kreise­drehen­sich­und­wohin­der­neurasse­von­verstandigmen­schlichkeit­konnte­fortplanzen­und­sicher­freuen­anlebens­langlich­freude­und­ruhe­mit­nicht­ein­furcht­vor­angreifen­von­anderer­intelligent­geschopfs­von­hinzwischen­sternartigraum, Senior (746 letters), also known as Wolfe+585, Senior.
• After 1985 Guinness briefly awarded the record to a newborn girl with a longer name. The category was removed shortly afterward.

Long birth names are often coined in protest of naming laws or for other personal reasons.

• The naming law in Sweden was challenged by parents Lasse Diding and Elisabeth Hallin, who proposed the given name «Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116» for their child (pronounced [ˈǎlːbɪn], 43 characters), which was rejected by a district court in Halmstad, southern Sweden.

Words with certain characteristics of notable length

• Schmaltzed and strengthed (10 letters) appear to be the longest monosyllabic words recorded in The Oxford English Dictionary, while scraunched and scroonched appear to be the longest monosyllabic words recorded in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary; but squirrelled (11 letters) is the longest if pronounced as one syllable only (as permitted in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary at squirrel, and in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary). Schtroumpfed (12 letters) was coined by Umberto Eco, while broughammed (11 letters) was coined by William Harmon after broughamed (10 letters) was coined by George Bernard Shaw.
• Strengths is the longest word in the English language containing only one vowel letter.^[32]
• Euouae, a medieval musical term, is the longest English word consisting only of vowels, and the word with the most consecutive vowels. However, the «word» itself is simply a mnemonic consisting of the vowels to be sung in the phrase «seculorum Amen» at the end of the lesser doxology. (Although u was often used interchangeably with v, and the variant «Evovae» is occasionally used, the v in these cases would still be a vowel.)
• The longest words with no repeated letters are dermatoglyphics and uncopyrightable.^[33]
• The longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus. However, this is arguably a proper noun. There are several six-letter English words with their letters in alphabetical order, including abhors, almost, begins, biopsy, chimps and chintz.^[34] There are few 7-letter words, such as «billowy» and «beefily». The longest words whose letters are in reverse alphabetical order are sponged, wronged and trollied.
• The longest words recorded in OED with each vowel only once, and in order, are abstemiously, affectiously, and tragediously (OED). Fracedinously and gravedinously (constructed from adjectives in OED) have thirteen letters; Gadspreciously, constructed from Gadsprecious (in OED), has fourteen letters. Facetiously is among the few other words directly attested in OED with single occurrences of all six vowels (counting y as a vowel).
• The longest single palindromic word in English is rotavator, another name for a rotary tiller for breaking and aerating soil.

Typed words

• The longest words typable with only the left hand using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard are tesseradecades, aftercataracts, dereverberated, dereverberates^[35] and the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses.^[34] Using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is johnny-jump-up, or, excluding hyphens, monimolimnion^[36] and phyllophyllin.
• The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen.
• The longest using only the middle row is shakalshas (10 letters). Nine-letter words include flagfalls; eight-letter words include galahads and alfalfas.
• Since the bottom row contains no vowels, no standard words can be formed. ^[37]
• The longest words typable by alternating left and right hands are antiskepticism and leucocytozoans respectively.^[34]
• On a Dvorak keyboard, the longest «left-handed» words are epopoeia, jipijapa, peekapoo, and quiaquia.^[38] Other such long words are papaya, Kikuyu, opaque, and upkeep.^[39] Kikuyu is typed entirely with the index finger, and so the longest one-fingered word on the Dvorak keyboard. There are no vowels on the right-hand side, and so the longest «right-handed» word is crwths.

See also

References

External links

• A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia – Long words
  • Long words (chemical names)
  • Long words (place names)
• What is the longest English word?, AskOxford.com «Ask the Experts»
• What is the Longest Word?, Fun-With-Words.com
• Full chemical name of titin.
• Taxonomy of Wordplay

The biggest word in the English language is 189,819 letters long, and takes three hours to pronounce! More commonly used big words are several syllables long, and often make people feel smart when they say them out loud. Somewhat ironically, however, study after study has shown that using big words usually makes people sound dumb.

There is a time and a place for big words. If you’re a writer, you might want to be careful about how often you invoke long words that no one has ever heard of before. Mark Twain has a few good quotes about why writers should be economical and precise:

“Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

With that said, below is a list of some of the biggest words in the English language, which you can choose to ignore, or insert into your writing and vocabulary. Remember, sometimes, a big word works better. Try to insert a new word into your vocabulary every day until you’re able to use them naturally, without thinking about it. Here are some big words that you can use to sound smart around your family and friends, along with their meaning so you use them in the correct way:

1. Abstentious

Self-restraining; also the longest word in the English language to use all five vowels in order once

2. Accoutrements

trappings, esp. related to apparel

3. Acumen — ability, skill

4. Anachronistic — a story that didn’t actually happen

5. Anagnorisis — the moment in a story when the main character realizes something that leads to a resolution

6. Anomalist — difficult to classify

8. Apropos — appropriate

9. Arid — dry

10. Assiduous — painstaking; taking great care through hard work

11. Auspicious — signaling a positive future

Big Words (B-C)

12. Behoove — something that is a personal duty

13. Bellwether — the first sheep in a flock, wearing a bell around its neck

14. Callipygian — having large, round, succulent buttocks

15. Circumlocution —the act of using too many words

16. Consanguineous — of the same blood or same ancestor

17. Conviviality — friendliness

18. Coruscant — sparkling

19. Cuddlesome — cuddly

20. Cupidity — greed

21. Cwtch — from the Welsh word for “hiding place”; the longest word in English to be entirely composed of consonants

22. Cynosure — center of attention

Big Words (D)

23. Deleterious — harmful

24. Desideratum — something needed or wanted

Big Words (E)

26. Enervating — exhausting

27. Equanimity — level-headedness

28. Euouae — a medieval musical term; the longest word in a major dictionary entirely composed of vowels

29. Excogitate — to plan

Big Words (F)

31. Florid — red and inflamed

32. Fortuitous — lucky

33. Frugal — cheap, thrifty

Big Words (G-M)

34. Gasconading — bragging

35. Grandiloquent — verbally pompous

36. Hackneyed — clichéd

37. Honorificabilitudinitatibus — an extremely long-winded way to say “honorable”; at 27 letters, the longest word in the work of William Shakespeare; also the longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels

38. Idiosyncratic — peculiar

39. Indubitably — without a doubt

40. Ivoriate — to cover in ivory

41. Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypo…pterygon — (ellipsis used because the word is 182 letters long) an elaborate fricassee; coined word that appeared in the play Assemblywomen by Aristophanes

42. Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl…isoleucine … the chemical name for titin, the largest known protein; ellipsis used because at 189,819 letters, it’s the largest known word and takes over three hours to pronounce

43. Milieu — environment

Big Words (N-P)

44. Nidificate — to build a nest

45. Nonchalant — carefree and unbothered

46. Osculator — one who loves or is loved

47. Paradigm — model

48. Parastratiosphecomyiastratiosphecomyiodes — a species of fly native to Thailand

49. Parsimonious — cheap

50. Penultimate — second to last

51. Perfidious — treacherous

52. Perspicacious — perceptive

54. Proficuous — profitable

55. Predilection — preference

56. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism — an inherited thyroid disorder

57. Psychotomimetic – inducing psychotic alteration of behavior and personality

Big Words (Q-Z)

58. Querulous — fussy

59 Rancorous — bitter and argumentative

60. Remunerative — lucrative

61. Rotavator — a soil tiller; at 9 letters, the longest palindromic word in the English language (i.e., it’s spelled the same way backwards)

62. Saxicolous — something that lives on rocks

63. Sesquipedalian — involving long words, just like this article

64. Splendiferous — wonderful

65. Squirrelled — put away; the longest one-syllable word in the English language

67. Supercilious — when a person is arrogant

68. Synergy — extra energy generated by cooperation

69. Unencumbered — free

70. Unparagoned — without equal

71. Winebibber — an alcoholic  —

On November 10, 2021   /   Language Translation, Localization, Translation  

(Last Updated On: November 10, 2021)

Language is the heritage of human history. Since prehistoric times, people have been using language as a source of communication. Without proper language, there would be no exchange of ideas, messages, and comments. Till now, all the development that we witness in the Modern world is because of sharing of brilliant ideas. All the modern inventions, from basic cooking skills to developing a rocket engine, are a contribution of language. No proper language means that ideas of brilliant minds would go in vain if there’s no guidance to work over them.

There have been more than 35000 languages since the beginning of time. There are only 5000 living languages currently, some of which are on the verge of extinction. As most ancient languages disappeared in the pages of history, the human race does not know much about it. We do not even know if they had proper grammar rules or something. Among the remaining languages, that have managed to survive the harshness of history, let’s consider English. English is the World’s most spoken language. Thus, It is also a language with one of the largest vocabularies in the world.

How many words exactly does the English Language contain? The second edition of the current 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has about 171,476 words in its current use. 171,476 are quite a lot of words. A human being cannot memorize this much amount of words, let alone the biggest words. Among these hundreds of thousands of words, there are some words that are long enough for a normal person to memorize. Though most of these lengthy words are not in common use that much, you will still find it intriguing to what even are such words and what do mean.

Outset

Consonants together with verbs form a word. The length of a word depends on the number of letters it contains. Lengthy words are very uncommon in daily use, though there are some scientific terms that are extremely lengthy. Similarly, there are also some lengthy adjectives and nouns that people use rarely. Instead, they use the synonyms of these words. Let us see what are these words.

What are the biggest words in English?

Here are some of the biggest or you can say lengthiest words in the English language. Accordingly, We have written them down along with their meanings so that it would be easier for you to learn them.

• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: This word contains 36 letters. It is one of the longest words in the dictionary. It is the name for a phobia of long words.
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: This word has 34 letters. People consider it the best word among other lengthy words. The film Mary Poppins introduced this word. It means you have got something to say while having nothing to say.
• Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism: This word contains 30 letters. It is A relatively mild form of pseudohypoparathyroidism that normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood characterize.
• Floccinaucinihilipilification: This word is 29 letters long. It is the longest non-technical word that not all directories recognize, that including the Merriam-Webster dictionary. According to different sources, it is the act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value, and being worthless.
• Antidisestablishmentarianism: This term is 28 letters long. It is the name of an ex-political movement of 19th century Britain that demanded to separate church and state from each other.
• Honorificabilitudinitatibus: This word has 27 letters. It is the longest word in all of Shakespeare’s works. Also, It is the longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels.
• Thyroparathyroidectomized: This word is 25 letters long. It is a medical term that defines the excision of the thyroid and parathyroid glands.
• Dichlorodifluoromethane: This word is 23 letters long. It is the name of the chemical compound, chlorofluoromethane CF2Cl2.
• Incomprehensibilities: This word has 21 letters. It means things that are impossible to comprehend.

The Longest Word in English

The longest word in English is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It contains 45 letters, among which 20 of them are verbs while the remaining 25 letters are consonants. It is the name of lung disease that the inhalation of silica or quartz dust causes. This word contains 5 different parts among which “pneumono” means lungs or anything related to lungs. Similarly, the part “ultramicroscopic” means something so small that can only be seen with a microscope. Lastly, the remaining three parts “silico” means silica, “volcano” means something volcanic, and the word “coniosis” means a disease that the dust causes. The origins of this word trace back to New Latin. It is a disease that the inhalation of fine volcanic ash or sand dust causes. I recommend you to know What are the 10 longest words in English?

Other Languages Having Biggest Words

It is not just the English language that has the lengthiest words. There are some other languages having words so long that a beginner may not end up spelling them right. We have enlisted these languages below:

• Basque
• Esperanto
• Estonian
• Finnish
• Ojibwe
• Mongolian
• Hungarian
• Korean

The Use of Lengthy Words

If you are a reader and have considerable experience reading books, interviews, articles, and blog spots, you will acknowledge that these writings do not contain lengthy words. The lengthy words that we have discussed above, have very low usage. Furthermore, they are not common English words. Most of these lengthy words are medical terms or names of medical conditions that people witness rarely. To be honest, No one would ask you to spell a lung disease called pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is caused by inhalation of silica or quartz dust. Nevertheless, we will suggest you learn some lengthy words as an adventure to increase your vocabulary.

The Impact of Lengthy Words in Translation

Most writings do not contain lengthy words as it affects their readability. Writers know that people despise such lengthy words. Their lives are so busy. Consequently, they do not care to consider reading such words. As most of these words are the names of medical conditions, disorders, and chemical compounds, they do not need to be translated. People do not translate proper nouns but if it is some verb or an adjective such as incomprehensible, it requires translation. Also, when dealing with translations, consider not hurrying as you might end up getting some lengthy words misspelled.

How to spell lengthy words?

Spelling lengthy words might feel like pulling a sword from a stone to you but not if you are adventurous. Likewise, there is a particular way to do everything, there is also a way to learn lengthy words and their meanings. Learning their meanings is of no use if you do know how to spell them. The main challenge in learning lengthy words is their spelling. Therefore, Slight disorganization in spellings can make the whole word incorrect. Further, the key to learning lengthy words is breaking them into smaller parts. You can make fragments of these words and learn them in order. Subsequently, this would make the process easier for you.

Wind-up

Today’s world is a busy place. Hence, People especially the younger generation rarely get the time for themselves so it is nothing new that they go for shortcuts. Since the advent of technology and lives becoming busier, people try to show greater efficiency by saving time even if it’s a few minutes. It is quite obvious that people would not go for choosing the above-discussed lengthy words in their conversations and documents.

They will prefer using short words in documents to increase their readability and use slang in their conversations to avoid lengthy texts and save time. Also, these words are very less frequently used. Nevertheless, it is not quite hard to learn these words just in case, you would want to flex your vocabulary over your friends. Having such words learned will probably get others impressed by you.

If we can help you with any questions, please feel free to contact us

Published August 27, 2021

That’s a big word, indeed!

Most of the longest words in the English language are scientific and technical terms, like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. But what are some long words that you might actually use one day, without having to become a microbiologist or something? We have gathered up over a dozen lengthy words that you might actually come across in the wild (or at least might actually want to use). If you are a sesquipedalian, or hope to become one one day, this slideshow is for you. And to find out what sesquipedalian means, read on.

For a look at the longest words you’re likely never to use, just click here.

sesquipedalian

Sesquipedalian [ ses-kwi-pi-dey-lee-uhn ] means “given to using long words.” It comes from Latin sesquipedālis meaning “measuring a foot and a half.”

• The professor was so sesquipedalian that he was often incomprehensible to his students.

The poet Horace, who is credited with coining the term sesquipedalian in Latin, used the word to warn young poets against using overly long and complicated words. Horace, of course, ironically did not take his own advice here to make his point—sesquipedalian itself is 14 letters long.

magnanimity

If someone asks you the meaning of a word, it’s important to have magnanimity [ mag-nuh–nim-i-tee ] about it. Magnanimity means “the quality of being generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness.”

• We hoped that the Queen would show magnanimity and not sentence us to prison for the slight.

The related term magnanimous comes from the Latin for “great-souled.” Impressive.

Speaking of soul, experience the linguistic offerings of soul food by reading about its history and vocabulary.

decompensation

As we noted, many of the longest terms in English are scientific and or medical terms. Some of these are so complex, it is unlikely you will come across them unless you are in the field. Others you are more likely to encounter, like decompensation [ dee-kom-puhn-sey-shuhn ]. Decompensation means “the inability of a diseased heart to compensate for its defect.”

• I observed some symptoms of heart decompensation in the patient, including difficulty breathing and leg swelling.

While typically decompensation refers to the heart organ no longer working properly, it can also be used to refer to other organs or a psychological state.

counterrevolutionary

One way long words are created in the English language is by combining different word elements together to create a new word. That’s the case with counterrevolutionary, a combination of counter, revolution, and the suffix –ary. Counterrevolutionary means “opposing a revolution or revolutionary government.”

• After the revolutionaries came to power, the landed gentry began plotting a counterrevolutionary movement to regain control.

deinstitutionalization

Public policy is another domain where you will find especially long words. An example is deinstitutionalization, meaning “the release of institutionalized people, especially mental health patients, from an institution for placement and care in the community.”

• Many studies find that deinstitutionalization led to an increase in the number of mentally ill people in prison.

transcendentalism

Our next term, transcendentalism [ trans-sen-den-tl-iz-uhm ], also describes an American social experiment, of sorts, from the 19th century. Transcendentalism, or transcendental philosophy, is “a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical.”

• The group quickly embraced the principles of transcendentalism, including respect of nature and the importance of human effort.

The writers most closely associated with transcendentalism are Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Thoreau.

paleoanthropology

As you may have gathered, many academic terms are quite long. Even the names of some academic disciplines can get up there in length, like paleoanthropology [ pey-lee-oh-an-thruh–pol–uh-jee ]. Paleoanthropology is “the study of the origins and predecessors of the present human species, using fossils and other remains.”

• One of the most important aspects of paleoanthropology is determining whether ancient fossilized remains are Homo sapien or another hominin species.

Learn about other intriguing areas of study and profession with this article on 10 other “-ologist” professions.

psychophysiology

Another academic domain with a daunting name is psychophysiology, “the branch of physiology that deals with the interrelation of mental and physical phenomena.” Physiology is the branch of biology that deals with the functions and activities of living organisms.

• The medical students studied psychophysiology to learn how heart rate is related to a patient’s emotional state.

The psycho- part of the word psychophysiology is a combining form meaning “psyche” or “mind.”

countercyclical

Yet another area where you are likely to find long, complex terminology is in business and economics. That’s where we get the term countercyclical, “opposing the trend of a business or economic cycle; countervailing.” For example, reducing spending when the economy is doing well is an example of a countercyclical economic policy.

• Our panel of economic advisors recommends that we enact countercyclical infrastructure investment; when the economy is doing poorly, we should spend more on roads and bridges.

profligacy

Another lengthy term related to economics is profligacy [ prof-li-guh-see ], meaning “reckless extravagance” or “great abundance.”

• Budget hawks were once again warning that the government’s profligacy was going to increase the nation’s debt.

The word profligacy ultimately comes from the Latin prōflīgātus, meaning “degraded” or “debased.”

palingenesist

Philosophy and theology are also great sources for long words. One example is palingenesist [ pal-in-jen–uh-sist ], “a person who believes in a doctrine of rebirth or transmigration of souls.”

• The palingenesist Plutarch believed that the soul is reborn into another body after death, a theory known as metempsychosis.

(Bonus big word: metempsychosis!)

The original use of the word palingenesis, or the continual rebirth of the universe, dates back to ancient Greek philosophers known as the Stoics.

palimpsest

Another long word we can thank the Greeks for is palimpsest [ pal-imp-sest ], from Greek palímpsēstos, meaning “rubbed again.” The word palimpsest in English originally meant “a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.”

• Scholars use sophisticated equipment like optical scanners to read the remains of erased texts on Medieval palimpsests.

These days, palimpsest is most often used figuratively to mean “something that has a new layer, aspect, or appearance that builds on its past and allows us to see or perceive parts of this past.”

antepenultimate

Our third to the last word in this slideshow is, appropriately, antepenultimate [ an-tee-pi-nuhl-tuh-mit ]. Antepenultimate means “third from the end.”

• I was relieved to see that I was slated to be the antepenultimate speaker, so I would only have to wait for two more presentations after my own.

The word antepenultimate ultimately comes from the Latin antepaenultima meaning “the second (syllable) from the last.”

dodecaphonism

Some long words are just fun to say. That’s the case with dodecaphonism, “musical composition using the 12-tone technique.” Dodecaphonism [ doh-dek–uh-fuh-niz-uhm ] is a composition technique that uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale and is atonal.

• The dodecaphonism in the composer’s work created a strange and unsettling feeling in the listeners.

amelioration

A particularly long word that we hope you find a lot of good use for is amelioration, “an act or instance of making better.”

• We were hopeful that the move would lead to an amelioration of our living conditions and a better quality of life overall.

Funnily enough, amelioration [ uh-meel-yuh-rey-shuhn ] and melioration mean the exact same thing.

We’ve all been there: trying to pronounce chemical names on the back of a shampoo bottle. No surprise one of the longest words in English is the chemical name for the human titin protein.

One of the longest Englishwords has over 180,000 letters. Spelling it would take 57 pages, so we won’t drag it out here. With that said, there are plenty of other big words in the English language. So, we’ve listed some of them using much smaller words in this article.

Main Longest Words in English Takeaways:

• The average English word has 4.5 letters.
• Many of the longest words in English are scientific or medical terms.
• Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis has 45 letters.
• Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism has 30 letters.
• Prefixes and compounds can increase word length.

In this article, we’ve compiled some of the longest words for anyone who appreciates the English language. So, prepare yourself because your vocabulary is about to get much bigger—pun intended.

How Long is the Average Word?

Before we discuss big words, let’s start with some basics. The average English word contains 4.5 letters. The longest words in English dictionaries have significantly more letters than that.

Nearly 60% of English words have at least one ‘e’ in them. ‘T’ comes in second, as it appears in 47.3% of words. Meanwhile, ‘Z’ finds a home in just 0.3% of words, with ‘q’ not far behind at 0.5%.

Why are Some Words So Long?

We often see a word with lots of letters and wonder what happened. Why would anyone create such a long word? Technically, some word formation rules result in big words. For instance, Long words often contain multiple prefixes or compound terms.

“Great” is a prefix that can significantly alter the length of a word. Genetics aside, you can use “great” as many times as you want for family titles. Make sure to use hyphens in between the “great” prefixes, and not commas.

Compound words can also get long. This is especially true when writers hyphenate adjectives. These words can easily become three- or four-word compounds.

Three-Word Hyphenated Compounds

• Do-it-yourself
• Salt-and-pepper
• Remote-robot-assisted
• New-and-improved

Four-Word Hyphenated Compounds

• Run-of-the-mill
• State-of-the-art
• Too-big-to-fail
• Chocolate-chip-milkshake-loving

You may have seen even longer compounds than these. For example, perhaps you viewed a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run.

What’s the Longest English Word?

The longest word in the English language has 189,819 letters. We’d love to share it, but it’s 57 pages long, which means a lot of scrolling! So, the word we’re talking about here refers to a chemical compound called titin. For the uninitiated, titin is a human protein found in our vertebral muscle.

Titin’s official term is 189,819 words because it follows traditional protein-naming guidelines. Proteins’ names are typically derived from their contributing chemicals. Titin has a lengthy chemical list.

Fun fact:It would take 3.5 hours to say the official name for titin out loud.

Some lexicographers consider titin a verbal formula rather than an official word. Lexicographers are the language experts who help create dictionaries. Traditional dictionaries don’t have room for lengthy words such as the scientific term for titin.

What are Some of the Longest Words in English?

Many big words are scientific or medical terms. Normally, scientists combine several ingredients and traits to form these scientific terms. Meanwhile, medical terms often contain prefixes and suffixes.

Most of us don’t have hours to pronounce the scientific term for titin. However, you can impress your friends with these long words:

1. lopado­temacho­selacho­galeo­kranio­leipsano­drim­hypo­trimmato­silphio­parao­melito­katakechy­meno­kichl­epi­kossypho­phatto­perister­alektryon­opte­kephallio­kigklo­peleio­lagoio­siraio­baphe­tragano­pterygon (182 letters) – a fictional meal referenced in Assemblywomen, a comedy by Aristophanes.

2. pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters) – a synonym for silicosis. Silicosis is a lung disease caused by inhaling silica. It’s also the longest word that you’ll find in most well-known dictionaries.

3. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters) – a nonsense word featured in Mary Poppins. Admit it: You sang this word rather than read it.

4. pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters) – a genetic medical condition similar to pseudohypoparathyroidism.

5. floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters) – the act of finding something worthless or without value. Finally, a nontechnical word on our list!

6. antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters) – a political stance that opposes disestablishment. While many people assume antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest word in the English language, it’s not. In fact, it has 12 syllables only.

7. honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) – with honorableness. This is an interesting word because it alternates consonants and vowels.

Why are Scientific Words So Long?

Maybe you have noticed that many of the longest words to date are scientific words. Why is that so? It’s because the scientific naming convention orbinomial nomenclature followed by the scientific community is derived from Latin. Latin words tend to have more vowels and, therefore, more letters. This naming convention is standardized. Meaning, every creature or organism will only have one scientific name, regardless of where they are in the world. Here are some examples:

1.Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides (42 letters) — a species of soldier fly native to Thailand.

2. Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus (36 letters) — a species of bird. It is native to South-Central and South-Eastern Amazonia. It is known as the crown slaty flycatcher. 

3. Anaerobiospirillum succiniciproducens (37 letters) — a genus of spiral-shaped bacteria.

4. Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis (51 letters) — the longest proposed name for an organism — a tiny amphipod from Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, in Russia.

In Short…

Ridiculously long words can make for interesting trivia, but, let’s face it, few will benefit from adding these monstrosities to their vocabulary. But if you’re looking for a lengthy word that could net you a world record, try oxyphenbutazone. It’s believed to be the highest-scoring word that can be played in a game of Scrabble (1,458 points on an outside edge).

Quick Longest Words in English Grammar Quiz

Read More: Hyphen vs. Dash: Size Matters in Punctuation