In choosing to provide a list of long words that you (or at least most of you) don’t know, I decided to eschew two very specific words: antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification – my presumption being that you will have run into both of them. When I was at school, I was unreliably informed that the longest English word was the first of these two, and later, when I went to university, I was unreliably corrected, when told that the longest English word was in fact the second of these two.
Antidisestablishmentarianism has 28 letters and can be blamed on the marital difficulties of Henry VIII, who, when forbidden to get a divorce by Pope Clement VII, set himself up as “Pope of the English Church” thus inconveniently linking the English church directly to the state. By the 19th century some British politicians had begun to conclude that this linkage was a bad idea (suffering perhaps from America envy) and they became known as disestablishmentarians. Naturally, other politicians opposed this and thus talked-the-talk as antidiestablishmentarians.
Floccinaucinihilipilification noses ahead of antidisestablishmentarianism by a single letter and it is a lot easier to define. It means the categorizing of something as worthless trivia. For example, my definition of antidisestablishmentarianism could, and probably should, be floccinaucinihilipilificated.
Both of these words were put into the shade by the Mary Poppins song; Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, which a word of 34 letters. Technically this is a nonsense word, but if you believe the words of its song, this is a word that is properly used only if you can’t think of anything to say. Thus it is always used improperly, since if you can’t think of some thing to say, and you think to use this word, then you can think of something to say and hence shouldn’t say it.
- Pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism. Let’s face it, this word is just a cheat. Technically, of course, it means “a feigned opposition to the separating of the state from the Church” and, at 34 letters, it draws level with the Mary Poppins nonsense. But really? Why not pseudofloccinaucinihilipilification? (feigning to categorizing of something as worthless trivia) or pseudosupercalifragilisticexpialidocious (a word you say when you actually can think of something to say, but want to give the impression that you can’t think of something to say.)
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippediliophobia. This word is blatantly intimidating and was almost certainly invented by a sadistic psychiatrist. At 36 letters, it’s longer than any of the words mentioned above and it means (I almost can’t believe it) the fear of long words. Only a sadistic psychiatrist would concoct such a word to describe the fear of such long words. I mean, how is that preferable longwordophobia?
- Circumbilivagination. I knew I would have to include some relatively short words, and at 20 letters this one is somewhat hippopotomonstrosesquippediliously challenged. It means; to move in a circle or walk around. There is a plethora of words that have the same or a similar meaning like; to circle, to orbit, to wheel, to whirl, to circuit, to rotate, to revolve, to circumambulate, to circumgyrate and to circumnavigate. That’s why circumbilivagination rarely comes up in conversation.
- Honorificabilitudinitatibus. This is a Shakespearean contribution, in the sense that Shakespeare is purported to have spoiled some perfectly good paper with this word. It means the state of being able to achieve honors. Presumably just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps was honorificabilitudinitatibic. To be honest, I’m not sure whether Shakespeare used this word in a play, a sonnet or a blog posting.
- Cholangiocholecystocholedochectomy. I’m not really sure that this qualifies as a genuine long word. It has 34 letters and it refers to the medical procedure of cutting out of the hepatic duct, the common bile duct, and the gall bladder. I really don’t believe this word ever gets used in conversations with surgeons. My uncle was a heart surgeon and I never heard him use it.
Having now listed 5 words, I think it’s time to state some of the principles I’m applying here. I really do believe that some words can’t be counted as long words if they are too specialized, so the last one doesn’t really count. I mean I could have thrown in pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters and a coal-mining disease) but that doesn’t meet the standard. There are probably shed loads of chemical names that stretch “to infinity and beyond” that would vote themselves onto this list if I let them.
~ Thomas Jefferson
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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
I love these words…keep them coming!
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This is actually a word..
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meant to start here sorry, but this is where it starts
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chemical names should be outed as words, as should all names (this includes names of technical/specialist proceedures, equipement etc) – since the two are disperate. the longest name would have to go to DNA because describing it under the standard chamical naming system would take decades probably!
and the fear of long words would not be Hippopotomonstrosesquippediliophobia and I assume to be a fictitious myth, as broken down into what it mean, it would pertain to fears of long words, but not be the fear itself (http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_longest.html).
I vote the longest word is ahh. lol, this is because if you are really relaxed, it becomes ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. lol, only joking
That is the longest one i’e ever seen! It’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BIG!!
o___o wooo long words ROCK! .-. i can spell SPONTANIOUS ENTHUSIASM COMBUSTIAN!
The longest word is elastic cus’ it ssssttttrrrreeeeeetttttccccchhhhhheeeesssss!
:L
@SpankzGiving x]
that’s not how you spell spontaneous…
You fail.
I have a long word…….. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
( That’s a breathing sign ) Whenever u breathe, u make noise…
That might not make sense but I don’t care
SMILE is the longest word, because after the S there is a MILE.
@Storm
why two??????????
kindly say this word supercraggifroggylististikoverkalisupermegalicous
geez… those words are… splendiferous!
Actually, the longest (and shortest) word in the English language is Marriage.
damn! I can’t read not a single word properly
I can say the longest placename in the world. But I can’t spell it right. But: Taumatawhakatangihonekouauoutameteatorapokakipikimonguhoranookapookawhenawhakatangatahu!
It’s in New Zealand and it means: The summit where “Tametea” the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and ate the mountains, known as “landeater” played his nose-flute to his loved one! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
@somebody, how is marriage??? it makes no sence!
At risk of sounding doctrinairious, technically “antidisestablishmentarianism” [sic] isn’t a word because it is hyphonated, therefore actually being two conjoined words; i.e. anti-disestablishmentarianism.
Your post provoked me into looking the word up in several dictionaries. None showed it has hyphonated.
I think I am going to try to use all of these on my next essay. I just hope that my next essay is before my mid-term exam.
thats what she said
I cannot believe no one’s caught this yet: You might want to check your spelling on #3, ‘Circumbilivagination’. Um…read the definition preparing to be titillated (fingering the vaginal opening in a circular manner?), then realized you must mean ‘Circumnavigate’. Not getting the ‘bili’ component, I checked ‘circumbilinavigation’ to make sure it didn’t belong there, with this result:
http://bit.ly/InitialSeachBili
http://bit.ly/SeachBili
I LOVE LONG WORDS ! THEY MAKE ME FEEL SMART !! I DONT KNOW HOW TO SAAY THEM THOUGH, COULD SOMEONE PUT THAT IN THERE LOL K
u lot do know the longest word in the world has 189,819 letters
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, longest official word
Really? A WORD? Seems like jsut a bunch of siffixes/prefizes/roots bunched up together, and some of thm repeat way more than once, myltyro.
@erico
Just imagining my self trying to memorize and spell that word hurts my brain literally.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehelol just joking gyuys
lol whats up guys
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is the longest word, apuiojikutinujetboysohahaandwhydontyougoandsexurmommacuzuhaveabigarsholesohahahahafckoffyounoobyboygaygaygaygaygaygaylosero
not to toot my own horn, but i can spell hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophoia in less that 10 seconds.
You should like put like the pronunciation thingies like on here…. so i actually like know what i am like reading… like yeah!!!!!
LIKE
I have you all beat…what word has an entire mile between two characters of “S”? Anyone know?
Obviously its…
SMILES!!!!!
@Brandon Bennett
LOL
and I know word and you have to read in a hour
The word is our
unheyphersymetricoantiparralilippipipeticostationalgeographically
@Heather
actually no u can’t, u left the b out of “phobia”
@Caraway
lol just kiddin ya that’s good
i can spell pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoniosis, floccinaucinihilipilification, and antidisestablishmentarianism (easy one) pretty easily
@Tajypops
You were so close on the spelling. It goes
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenaukitanatahu
anticolistificationalismtopiasyndifincatonicalopticnationalisationificationismalfocusintopialfoptic……………………………… beat that dicks
well said
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
ornithorhynchus
mississippi
difficulty
I love these words! Spelt from memory, sorry if any are wrong!
Thank you so much for this blog! Information that I found here was very usefull for me=)
the longest words I know are antidisastablishmantarianism and Floccinaucinihilipilification. if you want a fun word that is easy to use than look up defenistration.
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