Calling all folks with sesquipedalian tendencies (those who use overly long words) — this one’s for you. If you’ve ever wondered what the longest English word is, the answer is actually up for debate. Lexicographers (those who study words) consider a variety of parameters, and some disagree on which aspects are most important. Must the word be listed in the dictionary (and if so, which dictionary)? Does a technical or medical word count? Can it be the name of a place or a person, for that matter? These questions (and others) contribute to the lengthy discussion.
Some English words are still in use just because of their length — their original usages are long outdated. Consider, for example, the 28-letter word “antidisestablishmentarianism.” This noun originally meant “opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England,” but today, it’s almost exclusively used as an example of one of the longest English words.
Other such examples include the 29-letter “floccinaucinihilipilification” (the estimation of something as worthless) and the 27-letter “honorificabilitudinitatibus” (a sesquipedalian synonym of “honorableness”). But while they might take up more than one line of text on a phone screen, none of these terms is in the running for the longest English word. Here are some words that are.
(Note: We hope this list doesn’t inspire any hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. This 36-letter term denotes a phobia of long words, and while it’s a newly coined term, it refers to a real social phobia that can arise while trying to pronounce or use very long words, especially in front of others.)
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
This 45-letter noun is currently the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s another word for silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in fine particles of silica, a mineral that is common in sand and concrete. The word was allegedly coined in jest in the 1930s by Everett M. Smith, president of the National Puzzlers’ League, as a jab at elaborate medical terms.
Methionylalanylthreonylserylarginylglycylalanylseryl…leucine
This word goes on and on, officially tallying up to 189,819 characters. Perhaps not surprisingly, it isn’t found in any common dictionaries — it would fill up 12 standard pages and it takes approximately three and a half hours to pronounce the entire term. It’s the technical title of a protein that contributes to the elasticity of our muscles, but the name can be neatly shortened to “titin,” derived from the word “Titan,” a reference to the enormous gods of Greek mythology. Why is the full name so long? Per international science-naming guidelines, every single amino acid found inside a protein must be listed in its moniker, and titin contains 34,350 amino acids, resulting in this monstrosity of a word.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
If we’re considering proper nouns in this competition, the 85-letter name of this New Zealand summit might win for the longest word in an English-speaking country. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a hill on North Island, is named after the local legend of Tamatea, a fabled warrior celebrated by the Māori. The name of the hill comes from a Māori expression that translates to “the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as ‘landeater,’ played his flute to his loved one.” While the full name is written out on the sign to mark the hill near Hawke’s Bay, locals tend to call it Taumata Hill.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Coming in at 34 letters long, “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” isn’t nearly the longest English word, but because it’s far more recognizable than most of its competition, it deserves a spot on the list. Sometimes cited as the longest nontechnical English word, this term was popularized by the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins, in which a song helps clarify the bewildering pronunciation of the word. While it’s still considered a rare, fanciful term, it’s popular enough that it earned an entry in the dictionary as an adjective meaning “extraordinarily good” or “wonderful.”
Oxyphenbutazone
This word might seem miniscule compared to some of the others on the list, but for gamers, it’s just as important. A Scrabble board is 15 by 15 blocks, so the maximum length of a word is 15 letters. Technically, any 15-letter word could be the longest Scrabble word, but “oxyphenbutazone” is noteworthy because it is also the highest-scoring Scrabble word possible when played on three triple-word squares with just the right preexisting tiles. The 1,778-point word is the name of an anti-inflammatory medication used to treat arthritis. The stars must align to use this word — it’s never actually been played in an official Scrabble tournament.
