Frequently Asked Questions
Words
What is the longest English word? |
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We do have genuine (if rather
obviously deliberate) examples in our files of antidisestablishmentarianism
(28 letters) and floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters), which are listed
in some of our larger dictionaries. Other words (mainly technical ones) recorded
in the complete Oxford English Dictionary include:
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).
Most of the words which are given as 'the longest word' are merely inventions,
and when they occur it is almost always as examples of long words, rather than
as genuine examples of use. For example, the medieval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas
(honourableness) was listed by some old dictionaries in the English form honorificabilitudinity
(22 letters), but it has never really been in use. The longest word currently
listed in Oxford dictionaries is rather of this kind: it is the supposed lung-disease
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters).
In Voltaire's Candide, Pangloss is supposed to have given lectures
on metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology (34 letters). In Thomas Love Peacock's
satirical novel Headlong Hall (1816) there appear two high-flown nonce
words (one-off coinages) which describe the human body by stringing together
adjectives describing its various tissues. The first is based on Greek words,
and the second on the Latin equivalents; they are osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous
(44 letters) and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51 letters),
which translate roughly as 'of bone, flesh, blood, organs, gristle, nerve, and
marrow'.
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).
This kind of verbal game originates, so far as records attest, with the ancient
Greek comic playwright Aristophanes, inventor of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land (Nephelokokkygia).
The formal names of chemical compounds are almost unlimited in length (for
example, aminoheptafluorocyclotetraphosphonitrile, 40 letters), but longer ones
tend to be sprinkled with numerals, Roman and Greek letters, and other arcane
symbols. Dictionary writers tend to regard such names as 'verbal formulae',
rather than as English words.
Other questions in this section:Apart from 'angry' and 'hungry', what other common English word ends in '-gry'?
Are there any English words containing the same letter three times in a row?
Are there any words in the English language that use all five vowels with no intervening consonants?
Are there any words that only exist in the plural form?
Are there any words that rhyme with orange?
Are there words that contain the letter 'q' without a 'u' following it?
Can a DNA string be considered the longest word in English?
Does 'bimonthly' mean 'twice a month' or 'every two months'?
Female cattle are cows, male cattle are bulls. But what is the word for an individual of arbitrary sex here?
How do you describe a person who does not eat meat, but eats fish?
How many is a billion?
Is 'bookkeeper' the only English word with three consecutive repeated letters?
Is 'deliverables' a real word?
Is there a term for the study of love?
Is there a word for a baby hedgehog?
Is there a word like 'siblings' for nephews and nieces collectively?
Is there a word which describes the fear of Friday the 13th?
Is there an eight letter word with five vowels in a row?
What English words end in -dous?
What English words end in -shion?
What are the commonest English words?
What comes after once, twice, thrice?
What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary?
What is the collective term for a group of cats?
What is the difference between a 'street' and a 'road'?
What is the feminine equivalent of a misogynist?
What is the feminine equivalent of brethren?
What is the feminine equivalent of fraternal?
What is the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English?
What is the longest English word containing no letter more than once?
What is the longest English word?
What is the longest one-syllable English word?
What is the name for a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet?
What is the name for a word containing two capital letters (like WordPad)?
What is the only word in the English language that ends with the letters -mt?
What is the opposite of exceed?
What is the opposite of hibernation?
What is the opposite of juvenilia?
What is the opposite of nocturnal?
What is the opposite of uxorious?
What is the proper term for a word that has two opposing meanings?
What is the term for a new word constructed by combining parts of existing words?
What is the term used for a prompt composed by rearranging the first letters of the points to be remembered?
What is the word for a fear of ... ?
What is the word for a word that has multiple meanings based upon how it is pronounced?
What is the word for a word which is another word spelt backwards?
What is the word for people who collect ... ?
What is the word for words which sound like they are?
What is the word that describes when two words that mean the opposite of each other are placed together?
What word contains the five vowels (a, e, i, o,u) in the right order?
What words in the English language contain two u's in a row?
Why does 'unisex' refer to something to do with both sexes, not just one sex?
If, after browsing the FAQs, you still can't find the answer to your question then submit your query to the AskOxford Language Query team.
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