Long word of the day

It should come as no surprise that we are word lovers. In fact, we are big word lovers in that we love really big words. To express our love, we looked around for some of the biggest, most ludicrously long words in the English language. In addition to pure length, we also tried to find: 

• the longest word without vowels
• the longest one-syllable word
• and other uniquely long words.

Figuring out which word is the longest of them all isn’t as simple as just counting letters, though. Should you count scientific words? Should obscure, rarely used words be included, or should we give the honor to a word people actually use? In the interest of fairness, our list includes scientific words, obscure words, and all of the absurdly long words stuck in between.  

methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl… 

At over 180,000 letters long, the chemical name of the protein titin is often said to technically be the longest English word. If spoken out loud, this word takes over three hours to say! Its absurd length is due to the fact that proteins get their scientific names by combining the names of all of their joined amino acids together, and titin has quite a lot of them. For obvious reasons, titin’s official name has never actually appeared in a dictionary or scientific text. Because it is a scientific term, many would disqualify the Big M from actually taking the crown as English’s longest word. 

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, coming in at 45 letters long, is typically the biggest word you will find that actually appears in an English dictionary. According to many sources, it was coined around 1935 by Everett Smith, who at the time was the president of the National Puzzlers’ League. The word, which was basically engineered for its length, refers to a lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust. 

sesquipedalianism

Let’s look at a word related to the business of “longest words.” Sesquipedalianism is the tendency to use long words. Do you have sesquipedalian tendencies? (We do.)

The word is traced to the ancient Roman poet Horace, who in a treatise on the art of poetry wrote that in certain circumstances, poets must avoid sesquipedalia verba, a Latin phrase meaning “words [verba] a foot and a half long [sesquipedalia].” Horace clearly had a sense of humor.

pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism

We include pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, another medical term, because this is one of the longest words to appear in major dictionaries that wasn’t created with length in mind. Pseudo- is a combining form meaning “false, pretended, unreal.”

You might notice the appearance of pseudo- twice. That’s because this disorder simulates the symptoms of pseudohypoparathyroidism, in which the body doesn’t respond to the parathyroid hormone. So, there are two levels of “faking it” going on here.

English isn’t the only language with lengthy elements of its lexicon. Get to know some of the world’s longest words!

antidisestablishmentarianism

Often, people will bust out antidisestablishmentarianism as the longest word they know and are actually able to say. This word has rarely been used and is only mentioned due to its ridiculous length. This word refers to opposition to withdrawing support from the Anglican Church as the state church of 19th-century England. 

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Even though the sound if it is something quite atrocious, we do really like the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This nonsensical word with no real meaning was popularized by the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins and is often used by children as an example of a humorously long word. Songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman take credit for this exact spelling of the word, but the word itself existed even before Mary Poppins made it popular. 

floccinaucinihilipilification

Here’s one that is also very meta: floccinaucinihilipilification is a rarely used word that means “the estimation of something as valueless.” It is usually used in reference to itself! Dating back to the 1700s, the word contains four Latin roots that all mean “of little value” or “trifling”: floccī, naucī, nihilī, and pilī.

honorificabilitudinitatibus

The word honorificabilitudinitatibus, which is said to mean “capable of receiving honor,” has two major honors to its name. Firstly, it is the longest word to ever appear in the works of William Shakespeare. Billy the Bard only ever used it once, in his play Love’s Labour’s Lost (1590s). Secondly, honorificabilitudinitatibus is the longest English word wherein the consonants and vowels alternate back and forth. Check it again if you didn’t notice! 

uncharacteristically

Uncharacteristically for most of the really long words you’ve seen so far, the word uncharacteristically is often said to be the longest word that the average English speaker will commonly see or actually use in everyday life. As you may already know, uncharacteristically is an adverb that describes something as not being typical or acting in a characteristic manner. 

incomprehensibilities

At 21 characters, another one of the longest words you might actually use yourself is incomprehensibilities. We define incomprehensible as “impossible to comprehend or understand,” so incomprehensibilities are “things you can’t comprehend.” ¿Comprendes?

uncopyrightables 

If you look closely at the spelling, you’ll notice a peculiar thing about this word with 16 letters. It does not repeat any letter; each character is used only once. This word is sometimes called an isogram among lovers of words and word games.

One of the longest isograms is subdermatoglyphic, at 17 characters. But, since subdermatoglyphic (dermatoglyphics studies the patterns of skin markings on the hands and feet) is a bit scientific and certainly not one that is used often, we’re spotlighting uncopyrightables instead because it’s one we can all remember. It means, of course, “items that are unable to be copyrighted.”

rhythms 

The word rhythms may not look like much at only seven letters long, but it is said to be the longest English word without one of the five main vowels in it. The letter Y, that wishy-washy “sometimes vowel,” is filling in while A, E, I, O, and U are taking a break. As we all know, the word rhythms means “movements or procedures with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat, accent, or the like.” 

Are there really words without vowels? Depending on the definition, the answer might elicit a hmm.

strengths 

Strengths is another smaller word with a big achievement under its belt. It is the longest English word with only a single vowel in it. Considering it is only eight letters long, that really shows you how much we value our vowels. The plural strengths is most often used to mean “positive or valuable attributes or qualities.”  

squirrelled 

We go nuts for this word. While the word squirreled usually only has one L in American English, some dictionaries accept this British English version as an alternate spelling. Some Americans pronounce the word squirrelled as a one-syllable word (rhyming with “curled”). This makes squirrelled the longest one-syllable word in the English language at 11 letters. If all of that sounds too squirrely for you, the one-syllable verb broughammed from the noun brougham, a type of carriage, is also 11 letters long. 

As an aside, some may tell you that the word schtroumpfed is actually the longest “English” word with only a single syllable. This word has been used in some translations of The Smurfs (which is Les Schtroumpfs in French) in place of the more commonly used nonsensical verb smurfed. In our opinion, claiming schtroumpfed is the longest one-syllable word is just a bunch of smurf. 

Aegilops

Aegilops sounds like the name of a mythical monster, but it is actually the name of a genus of wild grasses commonly known as goatgrass. In addition to that, Aegilops is also commonly said to be the longest English word that has all of the letters in alphabetical order.

Indulge your inner sesquipedalian and take the quiz!

Think you’re ready to ace our longest English words quiz? Or is it a long shot? It won’t be long before you find out. Remember that a little practice goes a long way!

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian served me a dish. Here’s just a minor sampling:

jaunty having carefree or self-confident air. stylish, dapper.

rubric a title, heading, or initial letter, usually printed in red. a title or heading of a statute or chapter in a code of law. a class or categorty. a direction in a missal, hymnal, or other liturgical book.

praxis practical application or exercise of a branch of learning. habitual or established practice; custom.

lassitude a state of listless weakness, exhaustion, or torpor.

rhapsodic immoderately impassioned or enthusiastic; ecstatic. resembling a rhapsody.

venery indulgence in or pursuit of sexual activity. the act of sexual intercourse.

munificent very liberal in giving; generous. showing great generosity.

trellised a structure of open latticework, esp. one used as a support for vines and other creeping plants.

vespertine of, relating to, or occurring in the evening.

anathema a formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication. a vehement denunciation; a curse. one that is cursed or damned. one that is greatly reviled, loathed, or shunned.

perfidious of, relating to, or marked by treachery; treacherous

ineluctable not to be avoided or escaped; inevitable.

walleyed an eye abnormally turned away from the center of the face. an eye in which the cornea is white or opaque.

bivouacked a temporary encampment made by soldiers in the field.

and on and on…that’s not even 2% of my list from that one book.

Do you want to impress your friends with the longest English words? This blog is for you! Some of these words aren’t used very often, but some of them are quite common and you will absolutely be able to use them whenever you’re speaking English. 

• The longest word in English
• The longest word in the dictionary
• The longest words we actually use
• The longest word with one syllable
• The longest word with one vowel

The longest word in English

The actual longest word in English is unfortunately so long that I can’t write it here. It has 189,819 letters and takes over three hours to say! We don’t have time for that. And thankfully, it isn’t a word you’re likely to use because it’s the chemical name for titin. Here’s a very brief snapshot: meth…ucine. Just add 189,810 letters in between. 

The longest word in the dictionary

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word in any major English dictionary. It refers to a lung disease which can also be called silicosis. Why the long version then? Because it was deliberately made up to be the longest word in the English dictionary. The longest non-technical, non-medical word in an English dictionary is the 29-letter flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication. This is a Latin word that means the act of estimating that something is worthless. 

The longest words we actually use

You might have realized you’ve never heard anyone use any of the words we’ve mentioned so far. That has nothing to do with your level of English – most native speakers don’t know those words either! The longest words you will see in a normal English text are counterrevolutionaries and deinstitutionalisation, both with 22 letters. Another, with 21 letters, is incomprehensibilities, meaning things which are impossible to understand. The longest word we use regularly in everyday speech is probably uncharacteristically, at 20 letters. 

The longest word with one syllable

Brits and Americans are going to argue over this one. Because of our different pronunciations, we don’t agree on what is the longest one-syllable word in English. People from the US and Canada might tell you that it’s the word squirrel(l)ed. This has ten or eleven letters, again depending on where you’re from. While our transatlantic friends pronounce this something like ‘squirld’ (ˈskwərld), Brits pronounce the word squirrelled with two syllables: ‘squir-relled’ (ˈskwir-əld). I don’t want to say who’s wrong or right but… we are learning British English here. 

There are several longest words with one syllable in British English and they all have nine letters: screeched, scratched and strengths are just three of them. (We’re going to see strengths again in a bit – it’s our word of the day today.)

The longest word with only vowels

Euouae wins this category. With six letters, it is the longest word in English with only vowels. However, ask an English person what this word means and they probably won’t have a clue. It’s a musical word from medieval times, so not a massively useful term to know for most of us.

The longest word without a vowel

People argue over this one because it’s hard to agree on what is or isn’t a vowel. If we take the standard English definition that there are five vowels – a e i o u – then rhythms is the longest English word without a vowel. But some people will say that the y in rhythm acts as a vowel.

Another worthy contender for this category is the word tsktsks. That doesn’t look much like English, does it? It’s more of a sound than a word and it’s sometimes spelt tsk-tsks, but tsktsks is allowed in Scrabble so I think it counts. It’s similar to a tut-tut sound of disapproval. 

The longest word with one vowel

Strengths! Our word of the day is back. Strengths, with nine letters, is the longest word in English with only one vowel. A fairly close rival is schnapps, which has eight letters; so let’s raise a glass to it, and to all of the long words we’ve met today, and say ‘cheers’.  

Which of these long words do you think you’ll be able to use in your next English conversation?

Laura is a freelance writer and was an ESL teacher for eight years. She was born in the UK and has lived in Australia and Poland, where she writes blogs for Lingoda about everything from grammar to dating English speakers. She’s definitely better at the first one. She loves travelling and that’s the other major topic that she writes on. Laura likes pilates and cycling, but when she’s feeling lazy she can be found curled up watching Netflix. She’s currently learning Polish, and her battle with that mystifying language has given her huge empathy for anyone struggling to learn English. Find out more about her work in her portfolio.