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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.

2007-02-18 00:32:20 · answer #1 · answered by missourim43 6 · 1 0

kyyhkyslakkahillotaatelipalmusunnuntaikävelykatujuhla-
koristehedelmäkaramellimassatuotevalvontalaitteisto-
testauslaboratoriokäyttökertatulitikkuviinapiilohomo-
kaasulasersädehoitokotikaljakimblemestaruussarjakuva-
ristikkokilpajuoksuhiekka-aavikkoluonto-ohjelmauusinta-
vaalikokousedustusmeno-paluuruuhkabussivuoropysäköinti-
sakkolihakoukkuselkänahkavyöruusukasvimaamunajuustomaito-
rasvaimunestepinta-alahuulipunakampelaverkkomahalasku-
harjoituskrapula-aamukampapellavaöljykriisiapukeinolonkkalepo-
lomarusketusrajatietoteollisuuskiinteistömarkkinointi-
diplomi-insinööriopiskelijaperinnemaisema-arkkitehti-
kilta-aktiivihiiliteräsbetonivalurautaristisiitoshärkä-
pizzamaustevoipaperiroskapostimerkkisavusaunavastaprotesti-
marssivapautusliikevaihtoväliarvojoukkopakomatkaopas-
koirakantakorttitaikatalvisotakunniajäsenetupuolikuiva-
rehuvilja-aittakorpisuomaastohiihtoputkitiivistesilikoni-
rintataskuvaraslähtöliukumiinakenttäkeitinvesihanasaari-
ryhmätyömyyrävuosikurssikirjapainopistetulotukivarsikenkä-
kauppaopistoupseerikerhohuonepalveluammattikoulupoika-
tyttöenergiatalousaluelaajennustarvehierarkiakaavio-
suunnittelupäätöspäivävientisulkuporttiteoriapohjakunto-
urheiluruutuässäpariluistelutyylituomaripelimies-
voimisteluvideokulmakarvakuonokoppalakkipäämääräalennus-
tilataksimittarimatopurkkikeittoastiakaappipakastin-
yhdistelmälukkoseppähenkilötunnussanaleikkikalupakkipussi-
eläinkoeponnistuslautakuntalakitekstiseikkailuleiri-
telttakangaspuujalkasienipiirakkareseptivihkopakkaus-
muovikuularuiskumaalaustarvikevarastohyllymetrilakuavain-
naulakkovartiopäällikkötasogeometriavirhevaihtosähkökazoo-
pillihousupukupellehyppylankakeräkaaliaivovuotosuoja-
vaatekappalemyyntitykkilavatanssiaskelmoottoripyörä-
koppisiemenperunapalstajakoviivaintegraalioperaattori-
algebraoppilaitoskompleksilukusuoraveto-oikeusmurha-
asevarikkopilttuu

This word has exactly 1787 letters. The hyphenation was done by hand, so it may look weird on some machines.

How is this possible? Words this long don't exist.
The word is made possible by the grammatical rules of the Finnish language. Finnish uses compound words instead of prepositions to describe complicated things. Take for example the word "rauta", iron. You can add the word "tie", road, to the end and get "rautatie", a railway. You can also add the word "hammas", a tooth, to the beginning to get "hammasrauta", braces (literally an iron of the tooth). The fun part is that it is grammatically correct to join these two words to get "hammasrautatie". This is a concise and compact word meaning a railway that runs on teeth or a road made of braces. (Although, being a pun, it is quite impossible to translate properly.) This word can then be extended to "hammasrautatietyö", which means repairs on the tooth railway and so on.
The word shown at the top of the screen was made like that. I and Ville 3 were talking rubbish and somehow we started expanding a word. I added words to the end and he added them to the beginning. After some ten words we realized we were on to something. We fired up Emacs and started writing. After a couple of days the word was done.

Is this really the longest word in the world?
That depends. It fulfills the following requirements:
It is grammatically correct.
No word within it is repeated.
All consecutive word pairs are meaningful.
However, these arguments suggest that it is not a word:
It isn't a word per se, it is just a combination of words.
Some word pairs aren't natural, they seem a bit forced.
The final decision depends on your definition of word. However this word is the longest word known by the authors that satisfies the three requirements listed above.
Note especially that chemical compounds, biological terms etc do not qualify under these requirements, since they usually just spell out the chemical structure. Large compounds always have repetitive structure, which causes a violation of the second requirement above.

2007-02-18 08:35:11 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

Assuming you're limiting this to English words, the answer would be :
The longest word in any major English language dictionary is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a 45-letter word supposed to refer to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of volcanic ash, but research has discovered that this word was originally intended as a hoax. It has since been used in a close approximation of its originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to its claim.[1]
The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

Non -English would be:
In his play Ecclesiazousae ("The Assemblywomen"), the ancient Greek comedic playwright Aristophanes created: Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphio-paraomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonop-tekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon, a word of 183 letters that describes a dish by stringing together its ingredients.

2007-02-18 08:34:49 · answer #3 · answered by claudk_2000 4 · 1 0

This would be hard because in some places like Germany, for instance, what we would consider a few words, they would consider one word.

Example: If we said Navy Air Force Commander, they would say it navyairforcecommander.

I think you should be more specific about the question, and limit it to English words.

2007-02-18 08:39:47 · answer #4 · answered by ..... 4 · 0 1

My answer is simply "SMILES". It is the the longest word, a mile long with 2 "s" on both ends.

2007-02-18 09:48:02 · answer #5 · answered by Arnoux 4 · 0 1

Antidisestablishmentarianism- people who are against the establishment of groups that represent social embodiment or government rule and decisions of society

2007-02-18 08:35:22 · answer #6 · answered by GoodWillHunt 3 · 0 0

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
Pneumono+
ultramicroscopic+
silicovolcanoconiosis
(why its .... in display?)
A lung disease which is characterized by deposits of silicon in a conical formation which are extremely microscopic.

2007-02-18 08:36:19 · answer #7 · answered by Dosage 3 · 0 0

"Floccinaucinihilipilification" is "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation".

2007-02-18 09:11:39 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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