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im on a trip with no laptop

2007-11-09 10:27:00 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference Words & Wordplay

6 answers

Longest Word in English

The longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes an English word. English allows new words to be formed by construction; long words are coined; place names may be considered words; technical terms may be arbitrarily long. Length can be in terms of orthography and number of written letters or phonology and the number of phonemes.


Major dictionaries
The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a 45-letter word which refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silicious particles. 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.[

The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

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

2007-11-09 17:49:38 · answer #1 · answered by purplestarry 3 · 1 0

The longest word in 'the english language' is ensheathing or unsheathing (14 letters) :)

2007-11-09 10:46:50 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Or if the other answers don't suit your wishes, you could say the longest word is "smiles". Simply because there is a mile between the first and last letters.

Oof, corny old jokes...

2007-11-09 11:24:27 · answer #3 · answered by Trapezoid 6 · 0 0

Well, it used to be antidisestablishmentarianism.

But there are a lot of new words in the last 40 years, so there maybe something else now.

2007-11-09 10:30:32 · answer #4 · answered by Debdeb 7 · 0 0

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

2007-11-09 10:30:51 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu

2007-11-09 10:30:30 · answer #6 · answered by actorguy484 2 · 0 0

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