Longest word and definition

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 world is a big place full of big words. This is especially true in English, which is the primary language used for science. When a researcher makes a new discovery, they may have to create a new word to define or describe it. Often times, these words can get pretty long. However, there are also some very long English words that are not technical or scientific in nature. In any case, dozens of unique words compete for “the longest word in the world” title, so let’s take a look at the contestants!

The 10 Longest Words in English

Many experts argue over which words should or should not count when determining the longest word in English. For example, some say that it should be the word with the most letters, regardless of the word’s meaning or usage. Others claim that only non-technical, commonly used terms should qualify. Still, others believe that word length should depend on the number of syllables, as opposed to the number of letters. 

Finally, most people agree that hyphenated words (i.e. terms that combine two or more words with a dash) should not be included. For example, you could say that the term great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is the longest word in English. However, all you’d have to do to make it longer is add another great!

In any case, the following list of the 10 longest words in English will focus on the letter count. Later on, we will discuss some long words that might not make it in the top ten based on letter count, but might still be considered some of the longest words around. So, without further ado, let’s look at the top candidates for the longest word in the world!

Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl…isoleucine (189819 letters, ? syllables)

That’s right, there is a 189819 letter word in the English language! It’s unclear how many syllables the word has, but needless to say, we don’t have room to write out the entire word here! Fortunately, this is just the chemical name for a unique protein that is also known as Titin. If you’d like to know what the word sounds like, you can listen to a computer pronounce it in this hour-long video!

While this is the most “famous” of the long chemical names in the English language, it is not alone. For example, there are virtually endless combinations of chemical compounds that can be combined to form the name of a single strand of DNA. So, in theory, there are English words out there with more than a billion letters!

Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamyl…serine (1909 letters, ? syllables)

Despite being another chemical name, this word makes the list because it is the longest published word in English. Originally published in a dictionary for students, this word is simply the scientific name for a particular strain of E. Coli. While it may not take as long to say as the previous word on this list, you’re still unlikely to hear it any time soon!

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsano…pterygon (182 letters, 78 syllables)

This candidate for the longest word in the world originated from a Greek play written by Aristophanes in 391 BC. To this day, it remains the longest word in Ancient Greek literature. While the original Greek word contained 171 letters, it’s English translation contains a whopping 182 letters. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll use this word any time soon, as it refers to a fictional dish comprised of rotted dogfish head, wood pigeon, and dozens of other strange ingredients!

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters, 17 syllables)

Now we’ve come to words that you’ll actually see in an English dictionary. Still, this behemoth has almost twice as many letters as there are in the English alphabet! However, it’s definitely not the kind of word you’ll hear in everyday conversation. Nonetheless, it is, by most standards, the longest word in English and the longest word in the world! This word refers to a lung disease that can occur from inhaling small volcanic particles. So, how do you say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? Very slowly.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (36 letters, 14 syllables)

This is one of the most commonly referenced terms in the competition for the longest word in the world. Why? Because it literally means “a fear of long words!” Whoever created this term must have had a twisted sense of humor!

Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters, 12 syllables)

Finally, we’ve arrived at long words that people can actually pronounce! Nonetheless, for ease of use in medical writings, this term is often shortened to PPHP. It refers to a condition that causes irregular bone growth.

Floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters, 12 syllables)

In many circles, floccinaucinihilipilification counts as the longest word in the world because it is the longest non-technical word in the English dictionary. In other words, you could actually find this word in a dictionary AND use it outside of a medical or scientific setting. The term refers to the action of finding something worthless.

Antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters, 12 syllables)

Here’s another word that you might hear people throw around in a casual conversation. In addition to being easier to pronounce than most other words on this list, antidisestablishmentarianism is also a non-technical term. It refers to the belief that a State church should receive funding from the government. Due to its popularity as a fun word to say, many people (mistakenly) believe that it is the longest word in the world.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters, 13 syllables)

Despite its length, honorificabilitudinitatibus has a pretty straightforward meaning. The word simply refers to the state of being honorable. So, the next time you want to hand out a compliment and flex your vocabulary skills at the same time, just use honorificabilitudinitatibus!

Thyroparathyroidectomized (25 letters, 9 syllables)

We end our list of the 10 longest words in English with one more medical term. This word refers to the excision of both the thyroid and parathyroid glands. Like many of the words on this list, you’re unlikely to hear this one outside of a medical setting.

The Longest Words in the World by Category

Though the list above shows the 10 longest words in English based on the traditional requirements (i.e. letter count), there are other methods for determining the longest word. So, let’s take a look at a few of the terms that could be considered the longest word in the world based on other criteria:

• The longest word in the world based on letter AND syllable count:
  • Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl…isoleucine
• The longest word in the world to be published:
  • Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamyl…serine
• The longest non-technical word:
  • Floccinaucinihilipilification
• The longest isogram (word in which every letter is used only once) in the world:
  • Subdermatoglyphic
• The longest recognized “nonsense” word:
  • Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• The longest one syllable word in the world:
  • Scraunched

Conclusion

As you can see, determining the longest word in the world or the longest word in English is no easy task. Many people don’t count technical terms, but even if you do, the words can get so long that they cannot be feasibly written down or pronounced! In any case, learning one or two of these words will definitely help you sound a lot smarter when speaking English!

In closing, we hope you enjoyed this list of the longest words in the world! As always, for all things English conversation, grammar, or job-related, visit Magoosh Speaking today!

Ready to take your Scrabble skills to the next level? This list of the longest words in the English language could score you major points on your next game — if you can remember how to spell them.

Some of the words that qualify for the title take hours to pronounce, like the 189,819-letter word for the  protein Titin. Additionally, many of the longest words are medical terms, so we have excluded some of them to allow for more variety. The end result is a list of fascinatingly lengthy words that will make your vocabulary downright sesquipedalian.

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!