Can you think of a long/difficult/rarely used english word?

Question

I'm bored, what's the strangest word you can think of, and give a definition.
Somnambulistic: of sleepwalking/sleepwalker.

Answer 1

ABSQUATULATE To make off, decamp, or abscond. I do it all the time, and a few on here aught to as well!!

Answer 2

Not heard of this on before:
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary "a factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust' but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long word."
http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-2245.html

Have heard of this one:
antidisestablishmentarianism
Being opposed to the belief that there should no longer be an official church a the country. The word is sometimes quoted as the longest word in the English language. There is a town in Wales with a larger number of letters, but it is a place name, not a word.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/gl_a.htm

The town in Wales btw is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
http://teachingtreasures.com.au/student-projects/Llanfair.htm


Sequoia is a good one as it is one of the only words to contain all the vowels. It is a tree.

Facetiously also contains all the vowels but in the correct order. It means tongue in cheek, not seriously.

Don't ask me how I know these two facts, I just do!

Hope that helps.

P.S. When I started there was only 1 answer now I'm so far down the list you probably won't get to me :o(

By definition the most difficult word must be difficult, the longest, long and the rarest, rare?! Well it's worth a shot for best answer, maybe?! Oh and did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary.

Answer 3

Rarely used:
callipygean, which means 'possessing beautiful buttocks';
praemunire, which is the criminal offence of claiming to be the Pope.

Difficult: sixths. At least, it's difficult to say if you try to pronounce it properly; most people pronounce it as if it were spelled 'sikths'.

Long: there are lots of really long chemical names. I notice that a couple of answerers have quoted the complete name of a high molecular weight polypeptide. In fact, no-one would ever use such a name in practice, because the listeners would get lost after the first twenty or so amino-acids. But here are some more useful chemical names:
perhydrocyclopenteno phenanthrene (this being the name for the skeleton of cholesterol and its derivatives);
sodium para-dimethylaminoazo benzenesulphonate (otherwise known as methyl orange);
di-iso-butylphenoxyethoxyethyl benzyldimethylammonium chloride (a commercially available surfactant).
[Note that 'phenanthrene', 'benzenesulphonate' and 'benzyldimethylammonium' should all be joined to the previous word, but I've had to leave a space, as otherwise Yahoo Answers replaces the last few letters by a line of dots.]

Answer 4

Hi TK,
I'm a bit bored at midnight, having just returned from a vibrant music practice, with ears still ringing, so good of you to ask a calming Q.

How about "contrafibularity"
Meaning outspoken disagreement ?
Or perhaps "antidisastablishmentarianism"
That is fairly long, at 27 letters, the jist of it being the practice of keeping an established thing / body together.

I am only using English, but if you really want to find extreme long weird words, grab a German dictionary.

There seems to be a trend towards describing things, as opposed to giving things a name.
A possible example that we used to use is an "electoflippenflapperwinkingblinckingintdasvagenitem"

Er, winkers on a car, or somesuch..
The bloke in a Stuttgart garage seemed to understand what I was rambling on about when the indicator stalk fell off from a hire car many moons ago.

Best of luck with this fascinating subject

Bob.

Answer 5

Actuary:

It is neither long not difficult. Yet very few people know what an actuary is/does. Ironically, almost every person in the developed world will use something determined by an actuary.

Do you have/use any of the following:
car insurance
life insurance
health insurance
mortgages
loans
shares
investments of any type
betting/gambling
predictions of future events

Answer 6

Mr. No Name and worldwan gave this answer. pneumonoultramicroscopic silicovolcanoconiosis (I had to put a space in the middle of the word to get the entire word to show up.)
I am adding a tad more info.
It is the longest word in the English language; however, it appears in only medical dictionaries.
Black lung is a legal term describing man-made, occupational lung diseases that are contracted by prolonged breathing of coal mine dust. It is also called miner's asthma, silicosis, coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung—they are all dust diseases with the same symptoms.

Answer 7

How about these:

otorhinolaryngological (22 letters)
immunoelectrophoretically (25 letters)
psychophysicotherapeutics (25 letters) -
thyroparathyroidectomized (25 letters) -
pneumoencephalographically (26 letters) -
radioimmunoelectrophoresis (26 letters) - psychoneuroendocrinological (27 letters)
antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters) hepaticocholangiogastrostomy (28 letters),
spectrophotofluorometrically (28 letters),
floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters),
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters). a relatively mild form of pseudohypoparathyroidism that is characterized by normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood


didn't want to bore you with the rest!!!

Answer 8

Consciences! Does anyone ever say that?? Or Masscodiniest: hates woman (spell check didn't even have it!)!! Or Hamofrodide: long, difficult, and hopefully rarely used!

Answer 9

Haberdashery - a shop that sells ribbons and buttons.

But you asked for either long, difficult or RARELY used words, here's one on a darker note, I think the word "Hell" is rarely used in the old Shakespearean sense of the word. He equates a woman's vagina with the foulness of Hell -

"To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride. "


What a funny guy. Lesson for the day, now we know why 'bloody hell' is so rude.

Answer 10

antidisestablishmentarianism, with 28 letters, is commonly regarded as the longest accepted word in the English language. The word is used seriously in academic and ecclesiastical writing about the Church of England when the concept arises, which it does occasionally.[1] However, since 1992 it has lost this title to floccinaucinihilipilification in the Guinness Book of Records.

Answer 11

I know the longest word in the English language...


SMILES


...because there's a 'mile' between' the first and last letters!
Sorry that was a really bad pun.