And you thought your vocabulary was good? Try these words on for size.
Honorificabilitudinitatibus
The word consists of 27 letters. This word appeared in the script of Shakespeare titled “Love's Labour's Lost”, which means “invincible glorious.”
Antidisestablishmentarianism
The word consists of 28 letters. This word means “opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, esp. the Anglican Church in 19th-century England” as explained in Dictionary.com. It has been quoted once by the British Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, 1809- 1898.
Floccinaucihihilipilification
The word comprises of 29 letters. It means “act or habit to deny the value of some particular things.”
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The word comprises of 34 letters. This word appeared in a movie called “Mary Poppins”, which means “good.”
Hepaticocholecystostcholecystntenterostomy
The word consists of 42 letters. It appears in the “Medical Dictionary” edited by Gao De as a surgical terminology, which refers to indirect artificial tube surgery between the intestine and gallbladder or in the gallbladder and bile duct.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
The word comprises of 45 letters. It appears in the eighth edition of Webster dictionary, which means “pneumoconiosis disease caused by inhaling small particles of quartzite.” Miners are particularly vulnerable to this disease.
Antipericatametaanaparcircum - volutiorectumgustpoops of the Coprofied
The word consists of 50 letters. There is a display of one French writer's ancient story in a library shelf, with this long English word as its book title.
The word consists of 51 letters. This is a terminology related to anatomy. It appeared in a novel called “Headlong Hall” written by an English writer, 1785-1866.
The word consists of 52 letters. This word was invented by the British Medical author, Dr. Edward Strother, 1675-1737. It is used to refer to the composition of mineral water found in England.
The word of consists of 100 letters. It appeared in the book titled “Finnegan wake” written by Irish author, Andean James Joyce, 1882- 1942. This word refers to the downfall of Adam and Eve.
The word consists of 182 letters. This English word is derived from the Greece word, originating from the drama script of comedy titled “ecclesiazusae” written by a Greek writer, Aristophanes, 448- 385. It refers to spicy foods that cooked from the remaining vegetables and beef.
This word is terribly long in its length as it comprises of 1913 letters as follow:
Good Grief! You'd think they'd break some of the longer ones up! I've actually seen the word antidisestablishmentarianism used, although I've never used it myself.
#2 by I\\\'m glad I haven\\\'t had a #5, Chan!, Jan 31, 2008
I\\\'m glad I haven\\\'t had a #5, Chan.
#3 by valli, Jan 31, 2008
Veryyyyyyyyyyy interesting.
#4 by Judy Sheldon, Jan 31, 2008
Good research, Chan. Thank God we don't have a spelling test on these.
#5 by Alexa Gates, Jan 31, 2008
ohh man!!! those are some long words!!
#6 by Darlene McFarlane, Feb 1, 2008
1913 letter? I never knew there were words this long. You bring the most interesting subjects for us to enjoy, Chan.
Thanks for sharing.
#7 by fish, Feb 1, 2008
wow! 1913 letters!!!! that's crazy!!!
#8 by Hevach, Feb 1, 2008
The 1913 letter word is sort of forced. It was mentioned a couple years back on Slashdot and a few
other sites. There\'s a much shorter (and more correct) name for the protein, but it started when
somebody wrote out the chemical name for the coat protein of a tobacco mosaic virus, which was 1,185
letters in IUPAC nomenclature. It opened the floodgates for people to parse out larger and larger
molecules to get credit for the longest word on record. It stopped with the protein normally called
titin, which in IUPAC form is 189,819 letters long: http://www.othyr.com/titin.html
#9 by a_, Feb 1, 2008
Those are long horrible words. But there are plenty of awful, horrible, short words.
Buggy, onesie, heely, ....
#10 by ev, Feb 1, 2008
what about southernplayalisticadillacmusik? from Outkast's first cd? Great cd, great word.
#11 by b. radley, Feb 2, 2008
veryinterestingarticlethankyou.
very interesting article, thank you.
#12 by Johasua, Feb 3, 2008
cool
#13 by john richardson, Feb 3, 2008
"L" missing in # 4
#14 by ancientscribbler, Feb 3, 2008
My word Chan!!! As an old word sharpener myself, this was indeed very interesting. I've entered them into my spell-checker.
#15 by Samuel Z Jones, Feb 3, 2008
Those truly are some horrible words, but I think only antidisestablishmentarianism is a proper English word; its particularly nasty because its a double-negative in its own right.
That's some impressive vocabulary, nonetheless; well done.
#16 by rob, Feb 3, 2008
theres too much "y"s in the last one.
#17 by lobbol, Feb 3, 2008
I always liked floccinaucinihilipilification
meaning 'action or habit of estimating as worthless'. There a good story behind it too.
Theres also a town in Wales (okay so its welsh but I still have to mention it) GORSAFAWDDACHAIDRAIGODANHEDDOGLEDDOLONPENRHYNAREURDRAETHCEREDIGION
It means: the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay.
Love number 11, spicy vegtables!
Thanks for a funny article and reminding me of those crazy words. :)
#18 by john, Feb 4, 2008
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is spelled wrong.
#19 by aceparable, Feb 4, 2008
Not exactly poetry friendly. Try squeezing #12 into a limerick, or haiku..
#20 by Lynn, Feb 4, 2008
HAAAAAAAA! Wow! But what about supercalafragilisticexpialadocious? I probably spelled it incorrectly, but isn't is supposed to have an "FRAGILISTIC" in it? :)
#21 by Dan Slone AKA "Navwriter", Feb 4, 2008
At one point I was enthralledd with the flow of the language, in awe of the sound of words - now - I find myself as stunnedd as a prospective who discovers his intended has a secret life qtw
#22 by Danielle, Feb 4, 2008
There's also "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" which, ironically, means "fear of long words. Great list, thanks.
#23 by drake, Feb 4, 2008
I to remember it being "SUPERCALIFRAGILISTEXPI ali DOCIOUS
#24 by Steve, Feb 4, 2008
greeK
#25 by Janeane Rogers, Feb 4, 2008
You've misspelled a couple of these words. Please reverify them at http://www.oed.com/
#26 by CHAN LEE PENG, Feb 4, 2008
Hi, Janeane,
Can you list out the words that you said mispell? Thanks!
#27 by emma, Feb 4, 2008
Wow, now go try learning German. They quite regularly have words this long and longer. ^^
#28 by Sean Michael Donahue, Feb 5, 2008
Wow.
I'm not even going to attempt the last few.
nice post =)
#29 by anna, Feb 6, 2008
haha this is amazing!
yeah, i had #6 (which is spelled wrong on here by the way) as one of my spelling words in 3rd grade. pretty crazy huh?
oh, it should be: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
#30 by Nelson Doyle, Feb 6, 2008
CHAN, this list and article had me thrilled and dumbfounded, because I realized that our spelling bees are rigged. I have never witnessed any of these words in the National Spelling Bee, not to say that I could ever spell the words those bright kids have to spell to win.
I just admire the obvious research that you had to do for this article. This article must be Stumbled.
Nelson Doyle
#31 by KathySpring, Feb 6, 2008
crazy you'd think that there a short easier words to use
great informative article
thanks for posting
good luck
kathyspring
#32 by Shelly McRae, Feb 6, 2008
This list is just too much fun! As for any mispellings... let's just call them typos!
#33 by Savannah N, Feb 7, 2008
I'm pretty certain you're missing an "L" and an "I" in Supercalifragilisticexpiadocious. Shouldn't it be SupercalifragilisticexpiaLIdocious? I'm not sure why I noticed. That would make the word 2 letters longer, thus a little more impressive.
#34 by Peter, Feb 7, 2008
I had a Top 10 of Everything 2004, which seemed pretty reputable. Discounting chemical names, it says the longest word in the English language has 310 letters. Obviously, I cant remember it. Put it meant something like "Someone who pratices withcraft, divintation, etc.".
#35 by GeologyJoe , Feb 7, 2008
I think you mis-spelled #12. LOL.
#36 by Duhmoms, Feb 7, 2008
#6 is definitely misspelled pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
I had this as a spelling word in 5th grade!
#37 by Mandi, Feb 7, 2008
As an Irish person, I feel that I can criticize, but only 3 of the words in Finnegan's Wake were actual words - the rest was Joyce making stuff up. The worst case of The Emperor's New Clothes in literary history!
#38 by Angel, Feb 8, 2008
holy!! that last word was crazy!!! It would take you a whole day just to write it lol
#39 by John, Feb 8, 2008
Floccinaucinihili-PILI-fication. There are some more typos but I think other people have spotted them... I don't get how you could misspell any of them though, as you must have had to copy them out of the dictionary!
#40 by Nick, Feb 9, 2008
Tryptophan synthase is an enzyme composed of amino acids, as are all proteins. Along with the spelling errors, I suggest you check your facts before posting them.
#41 by mike s, Feb 9, 2008
author Chan needs a little work on his adjectives, when referring to authors from Ireland they are Irish not Ireland same with Greeks and Greece
#42 by Heymonthkumar, Feb 10, 2008
Oh God! I never knew we had such words... good collections though. Does any one still use these words?
#43 by Angel, Feb 11, 2008
Are these words or what? Very interesting though...
#44 by Dhara, Feb 11, 2008
Good grief, never realized Eng lang had these words, good research, keep it going.
#45 by Sam, Feb 11, 2008
Haha take organic chem or molecular bio and there's more large words than you could ever want... if you really want to call them words. Like the last- they are mostly just words strung together of different compounds.
#46 by Alfonso the Great, Feb 12, 2008
Sam I like what you so eloquently quoted as saying that there are many dysfunctional words in the English language that would take a linguist or a trained writer to deciepher the codes of righteous passage. Even though, I loved the article-great work.
these word are really horrible one they are even difficult to pronounce
jasmine
tech-chek.blogspot.com
#50 by s r sharma, Feb 13, 2008
very intresting.
#51 by Laurel, Feb 15, 2008
Couldn\'t read your page. Ads by Yahoo got in the way. Thumbs down on Stumble. Clean it up.
#52 by boo, Feb 16, 2008
laurel your a twat
#53 by Michael , Feb 16, 2008
#12-you have got to be kidding me-that one is pretty hard to swallow.
#54 by Rizza, Feb 18, 2008
WOW, I would feel bad if any of these words were in a Spelling Bee contest..
#55 by Johasua, Feb 18, 2008
1913 letters? that is unbelieveable
#56 by yagii, Feb 19, 2008
o w kur*we..!!
#57 by Zonolive, Feb 20, 2008
I couldn't stop laughing, this so so crazy, and I thought I was nuts! But what about the 01.01,10.11.00 that are binary. At least, here, you find some diversity, and it might have been sort of tedious. Let's hope, this just happened because paper is precious, the author couldn't afford the spacing. Can I fault anything worth a good laugh?
#58 by Tarra B., Feb 21, 2008
great, interesting article, thanks!
#59 by Jliu, Feb 23, 2008
"Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine 189,819 Longest word ever Some professional dictionary writers regard generic names of chemical compounds as verbal formulae rather than as English words" wikipedia
#60 by uzaku1, Feb 23, 2008
lol
#61 by eViLegion, Feb 27, 2008
Only #1, #2, #3 and #6 are actually real English words.
#6 was actually invented in order to BE the longest English word, and hense is of little true value, though it is listed in dictionaries.
#4 is just the lyrics to a naff song, and whilst it appears in some dictionaries, it is listed with captial S making it a proper noun, and hense not true English.
All the rest are "technical" words, mostly medical, which only have meaning within the confines of the area of expertise to which they're related. In order to count they have to appear in a dictionary, or anyone could just coin a random collection of 2 million letters, make up a meaning, and pretend its English.
#10 is surely Irish.
#12 isn't even close - its a verbal chemical fomula, not a word.
#62 by Mishele, Mar 22, 2008
The \"flocci\" word gives me the creeps, somehow i\'ve heard that part of the word in relation to some horrible pustulant malady. I like the medical terms; the anatomical ones are pretty self-explanatory. Makes me wish I had taken Latin, since it\'s the basis for so much of our medical and musical language. It\'s logical and always pronounced the same, so it\'s probably not as much fun as English.
#63 by Mishele, Mar 22, 2008
The \"flocci\" word gives me the creeps, somehow i\'ve heard that part of the word in relation to some horrible pustulant malady. I like the medical terms; the anatomical ones are pretty self-explanatory. Makes me wish I had taken Latin, since it\'s the basis for so much of our medical and musical language. It\'s logical and always pronounced the same, so it\'s probably not as much fun as English.
#64 by kevin, Mar 24, 2008
Did you know that the British Comedy "Black Adder" used Antidisestablishmentarianism in a sentence?
(Season 2, Episode 1 - Dish and Dishonesty)
Prince George: "Well, bring him here at once!"
Edmund: "Certainly sir. I shall return before you can say, 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'."
#65 by Chencho, Mar 25, 2008
Floccinaucinihilipilification
is
Floccinaucihihilipilification
#66 by kate, Mar 25, 2008
oh dear.
#67 by kate, Mar 25, 2008
oh dear.
#68 by Jim, Mar 25, 2008
Oh my Lordy!!!! In #4 you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious correctly but you mis-spell Mary in Mary Poppins. I'm having flashbacks to dictation in high school English. LOL
About half of these words were actually made up by bush and mean nothing to anyone except him. (fact)
#71 by Moomin32, Mar 28, 2008
My teacher said that the longest word so far is antidisestablishmentarianism but i found the 1 thousand and something letter long word.
P.S. "Anti" and "dis" cancel each other out so it should be establishmentarianism
#72 by Tyler, Mar 28, 2008
#71- No, that's wrong. It is against the political idea of disestablishmentarianism. So the two negatives don't cancel each other out. They were saying, "Hey. Don't de-establish the church."
#73 by filipferrer, Mar 28, 2008
how great u r?!!! im also interest about this publishing??? can u pls help me?????i wait for ur reply????
#74 by Mark, Mar 29, 2008
Good grief! "Long in its length?!" What were you thinking? While we're on the subject, what on earth makes you think that "Marry Poppins" means "good?" The word to which you refer actually appeared in the movie "Mary Poppins," where the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is used with a meaning of "good." If you're going to write snarky articles about words, at least get your punctuation correct so your sentences actually say what you intended.
#75 by bekee, Mar 29, 2008
weird, i had #6 as a spelling test in 5th grade. mean teachers we had!
#76 by swapna, Mar 30, 2008
interesting article, amazing....
#77 by EEZY, Mar 31, 2008
amazing!!!! what can I say????
#78 by Kate L, Mar 31, 2008
#65: you're wrong. It is Floccinaucinihilipilification (not Floccinaucihihilipilification).
One of the roots is "nihil" meaning nothing. Source: http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gwp=13&s=floccinaucinihilipilification
#79 by orlando, Mar 31, 2008
i didnt even think a word could be like past 100 charecters
#80 by kat, Mar 31, 2008
nice one!
#81 by Miranda, Apr 1, 2008
this was good. i have actually heard of antidisestablimentarianism. but the last word is crazy. somebody should abbreviate it. cant believe you left out the fear of long words \"Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia\" i remember it form psy class if we could spell it on the test we got extra credit. i also wondered if you had that fear would you devolop phobiaphobia bc you would be afraid of your own fear?
#82 by Maurice, Apr 1, 2008
It's "Mary" Poppins, not "Marry" Poppins. It is also not a real word, but made up for the movie.
#83 by jhenz, Apr 2, 2008
The only word I am familiar with is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Every time I think of it, I remember Harry Potters witch spells (sounds like it...). We even did a tongue twist game about it. It was fun though! :D But I never imagine the word #12 existed. :o whoah!
#84 by Phuong--VN, Apr 2, 2008
very very impressive. how difficult. T_T
#85 by Jon, Apr 8, 2008
Sorry, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis turned out to be a hoax.
#86 by Tom, Apr 11, 2008
#10 isn\'t a real word as has been pointed out i think
and if it is...then it certainly isn\'t in English...or Gaelic...cos there\'s letters in there that don\'t exist in the Gaelic alphabet
so highly doubtful there!
otherwise...nice list!
#87 by markishmark, Apr 18, 2008
What about my old high school favorite, Tetrahydrocannabinol?
#88 by lauren, Apr 21, 2008
holy sherlockhomes that is a lot of letter\'s but can you come up with the spesific name for DNA molecules?? that is what i would like to know
#89 by DavidCh0, Apr 30, 2008
"The word comprises of 34 letters"; "Mary Poppins, which means good." And this is tagged "style" on a writing site.
#90 by BronwynRaeProffit-Higgins, May 4, 2008
This is a wonderful article. Thank you for putting this all together for us! You will do well to ignore the few negative, fault-finding posters, it appears they didn\'t get the point.
