what is the longest word in the english language?

Answer 1

The longest word in a dictionary is 45 letters long --- it means a coal miners lung disease. Listed here with syllable breaks on two lines because Y! answers keeps goofing up the line.

pneu·mon·o·ul·tra·mi·cro·scop
ic sil·i·co·vol ca·no·co·ni·o·sis

The longest word used with some frequency (it was used on Senate Floor in the 1980s by Robert Bird, D-WV) is 29 letters -- It means the action of estimating somethings as being worthless. Also listed with syllable breaks.

floc ci­ nau ci ­ni hil i pil i ­fi ca tion

The longest word ever is 207,000 letters long and was published only one time in the science journal Nature in 1981. It deals with mitochrondrial DNA

Answer 2

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.


There are other long words on this website too.

Answer 3

The last I heard, it was the name of a particularly large molecule. The trouble with that is that in English, you can aways put "Anti" or "Bi" before a word and make it longer.

With molocules, you can add components, make a bigger molocule and get a bigger name.

Asking for the longest word is like asking for the biggest number.

Answer 4

otorhinolaryngological (22 letters),
immunoelectrophoretically (25 letters),
psychophysicotherapeutics (25 letters),
thyroparathyroidectomized (25 letters),
pneumoencephalographically (26 letters),
radioimmunoelectrophoresis (26 letters),
psychoneuroendocrinological (27 letters)
hepaticocholangiogastrostomy (28 letters),
spectrophotofluorometrically (28 letters),
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

The longest word currently listed in Oxford dictionaries is rather of this kind: it is the supposed lung-disease pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters).

and the winner is:
Some editions of the Guinness Book of Records mention praetertranssubstantiationalistically (37 letters), used in Mark McShane's Untimely Ripped (1963), and
aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic (52 letters), attributed to Dr Edward Strother (1675-1737).

Answer 5

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Answer 6

Antidisestablishmentarianism

I learned that in 9th grade, like, 8 years ago.

I don't know WHAT some of these other people are talking about.

Answer 7

i've been told it's the original name of Lake Webster in Massachussetts. i'll try...chargoggagogmanchaugagochaubunagungamaug. huh!! i've also been told it means you fish on your side, i'll fish on my side, and no one will fish in the middle. of course, someone might have been pulling my leg, but i don't think so.

Answer 8

interdenominationalistically

better yet see http://www.swanmore8.freeserve.co.uk/long.html

Answer 9

ngjkdfgjkskjgbkjbxngfkjsbrk;fjbnxckjvbkgfdt