longest ever english word

[elerrina]

what is the longest word in the english language?

[Quizmonster]

The longest word in The Oxford English Dictionary (TOED) is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, (45 letters) which is a lung disease brought on by inhaling certain dust particles.
TOED is the 'bible' of English words, so that has got to be considered the longest 'acceptable 'such word.
There are, of course, other such jargon-words used in medicine, chemistry etc, so I suppose someone could go on adding to them endlessly.

[Quizmonkey]

Usually quoted as floccinaucinihilipilification (from memory!) - but if you move into the realms of science etc, names of compounds and the like can get ridiculously long though they are rarely recorded in dcitionaries.

[Quizmonkey]

Must have been typing simultaneously there Monster - I bow to your lung disease...

[gutfish]

oh... i thought it was supercalifragilisticexpealidoscious.

who the hell named that lung disease? reckon he won a bet with that one.

[Quizmonster]

The question as to which is the longest word in English is pretty meaningless, given how extendable many words are. Some are just strings of jargon, such as the one I mentioned in my earlier reply. Some are joke words that have been made up specifically striving for great length. The oldest of these - created at Eton in the 18th century - is probably floccinaucinihilipilification, (29 letters) listed in The Oxford English Dictionary (TOED), which means setting things at little value. A more modern example is supercalifragilisticexpialodocious (34 letters) - also listed in TOED - from the film, 'Mary Poppins' which means fantastic, fabulous. (These were mentioned by Quizmonkey and Gutfish above.)

There are, however, genuinely long words which have emerged to fill a particular gap in meaning. The longest of those is antidisestablishmentarianism, (28 letters). This might be considered the longest �normal' word in English, in the sense that it is - of the ones so far listed - the only one you are at all likely actually to see in print.

So, if you are looking for non-jargon/non-jocular words that you may well see in print one day, the longest is certainly 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. (Because of Prince Charles's decision to marry Camilla Parker Bowles and given the fact that he will one day be head of the "established" church in England, the very word appeared more than once in the British press in early 2005.) But there is no reason why there shouldn't exist, perhaps, an adverb such as 'antidisestablishmentarianistically' to describe how such believers might behave!

This is what I meant when I said at the start above that words are extendable in theory and why the question might be seen as �meaningless'.

[Poglet]

All the above are incorrect, and rather boring. The longest word in the english dictionary is elastic.... because it stretches... ha ha One of my favourtie jokes from childhood!

[sir.prize]

Hey Poglet . . .what about the word smiles - - there is a mile between the start and the end!!!!!!!!

[red_flag]

If your looking for the word with the most letters... it's POSTBOX! (get it?)

[Gromit]

this is the longest (genuine) chemical name...


acetyl seryl tyrosyl seryl iso leucyl threonyl seryl prolyl seryl glutaminyl phenyl alanyl valyl phenyl alanyl leucyl seryl seryl�valyl tryptophyl alanyl aspartyl prolyl isoleucyl glutamyl leucyl leucyl asparaginyl valyl cysteinyl threonyl seryl seryl leucyl�glycyl asparaginyl glutaminyl phenyl alanyl glutaminyl threonyl glutaminyl glutaminyl alanyl arginyl threonyl threonyl�glutaminyl valyl glutaminyl glutaminyl phenyl alanyl seryl glutaminyl valyl tryptophyl lysyl prolyl phenyl alanyl prolyl�glutaminyl seryl threonyl valyl arginyl phenyl alanyl prolyl glycyl aspartyl valyl tyrosyl lysyl valyl tyrosyl arginyl tyrosyl�asparaginyl alanyl valyl leucyl aspartyl prolyl leucyl isoleucyl threonyl alanyl leucyl leucyl glycyl threonyl phenyl alanyl�aspartyl threonyl arginyl asparaginyl arginyl isoleucyl isoleucyl glutamyl valyl glutamyl asparaginyl glutaminyl glutaminyl�seryl prolyl threonyl threonyl alanyl glutamyl threonyl leucyl aspartyl alanyl threonyl arginyl arginyl valyl aspartyl aspartyl�alanyl threonyl valyl alanyl isoleucyl arginyl seryl alanyl asparaginyl isoleucyl asparaginyl leucyl valyl asparaginyl glutamyl�leucyl valyl arginyl glycyl threonyl glycyl leucyl tyrosyl asparaginyl glutaminyl asparaginyl threonyl phenyl alanyl glutamyl�seryl methionyl seryl glycyl leucyl valyl tryptophyl threonyl seryl alanyl prolyl alanyl serine

[Gromit]

Explaination of why the above isn't one word...

When I tried to send the above without the spaces, I got a error message each time. When I put the spaces in, it sent OK.

[GruntFuttock]

Could you re-type that please?-I'm sure you've missed something out!!!

[tubeway]

Yes - I think there is an L missing somewhere

[spacechimp]

Not sure but enlightens and unleashing are 10, in t-h-e-e-n-g-l-i-s-h-l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e MWAHAHAHA. what an awful joke.

[Hard@it]

Y so many Y's

[Quizmonster]

I see that 'glutam...' appears about 20 times in the chemistry word above...I couldn't be bothered to recount. I presume the whole thing is a chemical compound of some sort, so what if another chemist added another bit of whatever the 'glutam...' thing is?
It just illustrates the point I made earlier...such jargon words might be infinitely extendable.
I think it's also true that one is extremely unlikely ever to see it in print...even here we have seen it only in bits.

[elerrina]

after seeing that word i went and looked for it and found it in print it 1913 letters long or somwhere around that and its an enzyme of some sort

[lady_p_gold]

And I am silly enough to have learned to say it !!!

[loyaltonone]

flaucinaucipiliflaeh---bla bla bla, you gotta have some serious time on your hands to learn how to say any of these words. i mean, when will we ever use these words unless we somehow get 8 years of college and miraculously (sorry if i spelled it wrong), become a rocket scientist?

[nick22]

gromit you're missing a friggin' M at the begining