which is the longest word?

Answer 1

45) PNEUMONO­ULTRA­MICRO­SCOPIC­SILICO­VOLCANO­CONIOSIS (also spelled PNEUMONO­ULTRA­MICRO­SCOPIC­SILICO­VOLCANO­KONIOSIS) = a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust.
This is the longest word in any English dictionary. However, it was coined by Everett Smith, the President of The National Puzzlers' League, in 1935 purely for the purpose of inventing a new "longest word". The Oxford English Dictionary described the word as factitious. Nevertheless it also appears in the Webster's, Random House, and Chambers dictionaries.
(37) HEPATICO­CHOLANGIO­CHOLECYST­ENTERO­STOMIES = a surgical creation of a connection between the gall bladder and a hepatic duct and between the intestine and the gall bladder.
This is the longest word in Gould's Medical Dictionary.

(34) SUPER­CALI­FRAGI­LISTIC­EXPI­ALI­DOCIOUS = song title from the Walt Disney movie Mary Poppins.
It is in the Oxford English Dictionary.


"But then one day I learned a word
That saved me achin' nose,
The biggest word you ever 'eard,
And this is 'ow it goes:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"
(30) HIPPOPOTO­MONSTRO­SESQUIPED­AL­IAN = pertaining to a very long word.
From Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words.

(29) FLOCCI­NAUCINI­HILIPIL­IFICATION = an estimation of something as worthless.
This is the longest word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Interestingly the most common letter in English, E, does not appear in this word at all, whilst I occurs a total of nine times. The word dates back to 1741. The 1992 Guinness Book of World Records calls flocci­nauci­nihili­pilification the longest real word in the Oxford English Dictionary, and refers to pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­koniosis as the longest made-up one.

(28) ANTI­DIS­ESTABLISH­MENT­ARIAN­ISM = the belief which opposes removing the tie between church and state.
Probably the most popular of the "longest words" in recent decades.

(27) HONORI­FICABILI­TUDINI­TATIBUS = honorableness.
The word first appeared in English in 1599, and in 1721 was listed by Bailey's Dictionary as the longest word in English. It was used by Shakespeare in Love's Labor's Lost (Costard; Act V, Scene I):


"O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon."
Shakespeare does not use any other words over 17 letters in length.

(27) ELECTRO­ENCEPHALO­GRAPHICALLY
The longest unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Ed.), joint with ethylene­diamine­tetraacetate (see below).

(27) ANTI­TRANSUB­STAN­TIA­TION­ALIST = one who doubts that consecrated bread and wine actually change into the body and blood of Christ.

(21) DIS­PRO­PORTION­ABLE­NESS and (21) IN­COM­PREHEN­SIB­ILITIES
These are described by the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the longest words in common usage.

Some say SMILES is the longest word because there is a MILE between the first and last letters!



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Chemical Terms
Two chemical terms (3,641 and 1,913 letters long) have appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records. They were withdrawn because they have never been used by chemists, and there is no theoretical limit to the length of possible legitimate chemical terms. A DNA molecule could have a name of over 1,000,000,000 letters if it was written out in full.
(1,185) ACETYL­SERYL­TYROSYL­SERYL­ISO­LEUCYL­THREONYL­SERYL­PROLYL­SERYL­GLUTAMINYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­VALYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­LEUCYL­SERYL­SERYL­VALYL­TRYPTOPHYL­ALANYL­ASPARTYL­PROLYL­ISOLEUCYL­GLUTAMYL­LEUCYL­LEUCYL­ASPARAGINYL­VALYL­CYSTEINYL­THREONYL­SERYL­SERYL­LEUCYL­GLYCYL­ASPARAGINYL­GLUTAMINYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­GLUTAMINYL­THREONYL­GLUTAMINYL­GLUTAMINYL­ALANYL­ARGINYL­THREONYL­THREONYL­GLUTAMINYL­VALYL­GLUTAMINYL­GLUTAMINYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­SERYL­GLUTAMINYL­VALYL­TRYPTOPHYL­LYSYL­PROLYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­PROLYL­GLUTAMINYL­SERYL­THREONYL­VALYL­ARGINYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­PROLYL­GLYCYL­ASPARTYL­VALYL­TYROSYL­LYSYL­VALYL­TYROSYL­ARGINYL­TYROSYL­ASPARAGINYL­ALANYL­VALYL­LEUCYL­ASPARTYL­PROLYL­LEUCYL­ISOLEUCYL­THREONYL­ALANYL­LEUCYL­LEUCYL­GLYCYL­THREONYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­ASPARTYL­THREONYL­ARGINYL­ASPARAGINYL­ARGINYL­ISOLEUCYL­ISOLEUCYL­GLUTAMYL­VALYL­GLUTAMYL­ASPARAGINYL­GLUTAMINYL­GLUTAMINYL­SERYL­PROLYL­THREONYL­THREONYL­ALANYL­GLUTAMYL­THREONYL­LEUCYL­ASPARTYL­ALANYL­THREONYL­ARGINYL­ARGINYL­VALYL­ASPARTYL­ASPARTYL­ALANYL­THREONYL­VALYL­ALANYL­ISOLEUCYL­ARGINYL­SERYL­ALANYL­ASPARAGINYL­ISOLEUCYL­ASPARAGINYL­LEUCYL­VALYL­ASPARAGINYL­GLUTAMYL­LEUCYL­VALYL­ARGINYL­GLYCYL­THREONYL­GLYCYL­LEUCYL­TYROSYL­ASPARAGINYL­GLUTAMINYL­ASPARAGINYL­THREONYL­PHENYL­ALANYL­GLUTAMYL­SERYL­METHIONYL­SERYL­GLYCYL­LEUCYL­VALYL­TRYPTOPHYL­THREONYL­SERYL­ALANYL­PROLYL­ALANYL­SERINE = Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Dahlemense Strain.
This word has appeared in the American Chemical Society's Chemical Abstracts and is thus considered by some to be the longest real word.

(39) TETRA­METHYL­DIAMINO­BENZHYDRYL­PHOSPHINOUS = a type of acid.
This is the longest chemical term in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Ed.). It does not have its own entry but appears under a citation for another word.

(37) FORMALDEHYDE­TETRA­METHYL­AMIDO­FLUORIMUM
Chemical term in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Ed.).

(37) DIMETHYL­AMIDO­PHENYL­DIMETHYL­PYRAZOLONE
Chemical term in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Ed.).

(31) DICHLORO­DIPHENYL­TRICHLORO­ETHANE = a pesticide used to kill lice; abbrv. DDT.
It is the longest word in the Macquarie Dictionary and is also in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Ed.).

(29) TRINITRO­PHENYL­METHYL­NITRAMINE = a type of explosive.
This is the longest chemical term in Webster's Dictionary (3rd Ed.).

(27) ETHYLENE­DIAMINE­TETRA­ACETATE
The longest unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Ed.), joint with electroencephalographically (see above).

(26) ETHYLENE­DIAMINE­TETRA­ACETIC = a type of acid; abbrv. EDTA.
This word appears in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Ed.).



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Place Names
There are many long place names around the world. Here are a few of the largest.
(85) TAUMATA­WHAKA­TANGI­HANGA­KOAUAU­O­TAMATEA­TURIPUKAKA­PIKI­MAUNGA­HORO­NUKU­POKAI­WHENUA­KITANA­TAHU
A hill in New Zealand. This Maori name was in general use, but is now generally abbreviated to Taumata. The name means: the summit of the hill, where Tamatea, who is known as the land eater, slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, played on his nose flute to his loved one.

(66) GORSA­FAWDDACH­AIDRAIGODAN­HEDDO­GLEDDOLON­PENRHYN­AREUR­DRAETH­CEREDIGION
A town in Wales. The name means: the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay.

(58) LLAN­FAIR­PWLL­GWYN­GYLL­GOGERY­CHWYRN­DROBWLL­LLANTY­SILIO­GOGO­GOCH
A town in North Wales. The name roughly translates as: St. Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

(41) CHAR­GOGAGOG­MAN­CHAR­GOGAGOG­CHAR­BUNA­GUNGAMOG
Another name for Lake Webster in Massachusetts. Probably the longest name in the United States. Alternative spellings are:
(44) CHAR­GOGGAGOGG­MAN­CHAUG­GAGOGG­CHAU­BUNA­GUNGAMOGG,
(45) CHAR­GOGGAGOGG­MAN­CHAUG­GAGOGG­CHAU­BUNA­GUNGAMAUGG,
(44) CHAR­GOGGAGOGG­MAN­CHAUG­GAGOGG­CHA­BUNA­GUNGAMAUGG.

(23) NUNATH­LOOGAGA­MIUT­BINGOI
The Eskimo name for some dunes in Alaska, according to The Book of Names by J. N. Hook.

Answer 2

Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism is given in the OED as the official "longest word in the English Language".

However, the Maori place-name Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu (92 letters) *is* recognised as an official word, albeit a place-name. It is noted in the Guiness Book of World Records as being the longest right now.

My personal favourite, "antidisestablishmentarianism" is probably the most commonly-used English word in use today.

Answer 3

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the longest English word of one syllable is the ten-letter scraunched, appearing in a 1620 translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote. It is a largely obsolete form of scrunched or crunched.

The eleven-letter word broughammed (created by analogy with bussed, biked, carted etc.), while readily pronounceable as one syllable in all dialects ("broomed"), is yet to appear in a print dictionary. See: "ough" words.

The 10-letter word "squirreled" is arguably monosyllabic.

There are a number of nine-letter words of a single syllable. Unsurprisingly, most of these long words contain one or more digraphs (e.g., rr or ai) and the occasional trigraph (e.g., tch). That is, multiple letters are used to represent a single sound. Additionally, neither the -ed preterite past tense ending for verbs, nor the -s plural ending for nouns increases the syllable count for words, so it is unsurprising that the longest words would use these endings.

Note, however, that in early Modern English, the -ed ending was frequently pronounced with a /ə/ (schwa) or /ɪ/ or /ɛ/, resulting in another syllable. Even today, the e is pronounced as a schwa in some dialects, resulting in an increased syllable count.

Aside from the -ed pronunciation issue, scraunched's claim is further weakened by the fact that English spelling was largely unstandardized throughout the early Modern English period until the advent of modern dictionaries. 1620 is well within the early Modern English period.

List of nine-letter English words of a single syllable:

broughams
craunched
quarreled
schlepped
scratched
scraughed
screeched
scrinched
scritched
scrooched
scrounged
scrunched
sprainged
spreathed
squelched
straights
strengths
stretched
throughed
thrutched
Note that strengths manages to have only one vowel letter. It is also one of the most complex syllables in English, its consonants and vowels being distributed as CCCVCCCC (/strɛŋkθs/, although it can be pronounced /strɛŋθs/).

Finally, one can consider the use of an apostrophe as an extension to the word length. Under this assumption, nouns using the plural -s can be modified to use the singular possessive case ending -'s or the plural possessive -s', resulting in a marginally longer word. However, in some dialects, this adds a second syllable and disqualifies the word.

List of nine-letter English words, plus apostrophe, of a single syllable:

brougham's and broughams'
straight's and straights'
strength's and strengths'

Answer 4

Supercala-
fragilisticexpialidotious

Answer 5

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Answer 6

Antidisestablishmentarianistic - I learned this back in high school, and it has been on a Jeopardy episode.

Answer 7

SuperCalifragilisticexpialidocious

But next one is what I have made:

Dongcalroryficationgreenishalidociouse'

Answer 8

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, noun (NOO-muh-noh-UL-truh-MY-kruh-SKOP-ik-SIL -i-koh-vol-KAY-no-KOH-nee-O-sis, nyoo-)

A lung disease caused by inhaling fine particles of silica.

Answer 9

It is elastic cos it "stretches"

Answer 10

PNEUMONO­ULTRA­MICRO­SCOPIC­SILICO­VOLCANO­CONIOSIS (also spelled PNEUMONO­ULTRA­MICRO­SCOPIC­SILICO­VOLCANO­KONIOSIS) = a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust.