Post by toweringniceguy on Mar 5, 2007 13:15:41 GMT 10
The longest English word:
The question of determining the longest English word inevitably boils down to defining what is acceptable as a word, since prefixes/suffixes can be adjoined to words to make longer words and because medical/chemical terms can get arbitrarily long. Further, most contenders for the honor of being the longest word are likely to be very rare in actual usage - so rare, in fact that they could be considered nonce words. The most common candidates for the crown, in my opinion, are
antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters),
floccinaucinihilipilification(29 letters) and
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis (45 letters).
The first is the only one of the three that was not specifically constructed for the purpose of being a very long word. It means opposition to the separation of church and state. The second, meaning the estimation of something as worthless, is the longest non-technical word in the OED. The latter, supposedly a lung disease, appears to be a semi-serious concoction.
Lexically interesting words. .
Longest word without a vowel:
symphysy.
Runners-up: nymphly, rhythms, gypsyfy, gypsyry.
Excluding 'y': crwths.
Longest word with at most 1 vowel:
glycyphyllin, psychorhythm.
Word with most vowels:
counterrevolutionaries.
Word with most consecutive vowels (5):
cooeeing, miaoued, miaouing, queueing. (Euouae, consisting of nothing but 6 vowels, is of doubtful legitimacy.)
Smallest word with all 5 vowels:
eulogia, miaoued, sequoia.
Longest word with only 3 distinct alphabets:
seeresses.
Longest word with only 4 distinct alphabets:
senselessness.
Longest word with no repeated letter:
dermatoglyphics.
Longest word with letters in alphabetical order:
aegilops.
Longest word with letters in reverse alphabetical order:
trollied.
Longest word that can be typed with the right hand alone
(on a qwerty keyboard): phyllophyllin.
Longest word that can be typed with the left hand alone
(on a qwerty keyboard): devertebrated.
Longest word that can be typed using the top row
(of a qwerty keyboard): rupturewort.
Runners-up: peppertree, pepperwort, perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, tetterwort, typewriter.
Interesting words with the substring 'uu':
continuum, fatuus, menstruum, residiuum, vacuum.
Word with the maximum number of distinct alphabets (16):
blepharoconjunctivitis, formaldehydesulphoxylic, pneumoventriculography, pseudolamellibranchiate, superacknowledgment.
Word with most a's :
astragalocalcaneal, calcaneoastragalar, taramasalata.
Word with most e's (7):
electrotelethermometer.
Word with most i's :
impossibilification, indistinguishability, indivisibility, minimifidianism, pericardiomediastinitis.
Word with most o's :
choledochoduodenostomy, duodenocholedochotomy, monogonoporous, odontonosology, proctocolonoscopy, pseudomonocotyledonous, zoologicoarchaeologist.
Word with most u's (5):
untumultous.
Words with four consecutive letters of the alphabet appearing consecutively:
mnop: cremnophobia, gymnopaedic, gymnoplast, limnophile, somnopathy
(and a few others). rstu: overstudy, overstuff, understudy, afterstudy, overstudious, superstuff, understuff.
Words with four consecutive letters of the alphabet appearing consecutively in reverse order:
ponm: tamponment, weaponmaker.
Words with 3 consecutive s's:
bossship, headmistressship, patronessship.
The last word:
zyzzyva.
TYPEWRITER (10 letters) can be typed using only the top row of keys on a standard keyboard.
FICKLEHEADED and FIDDLEDEEDEE are the longest English words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet, each being 12 letters long.
PARADIGM was the word most frequently looked up in 1998 in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
The words most likely to be misspelled (ratio of incorrect to correct spelling) according to a study of Usenet traffic some years ago were DUMBELL, OCCURRENCE, MEMENTO, FRUSTUM, COLLECTIBLE, AMATEUR, DAIQUIRI, PASTIME, ACCIDENTALLY, PLAYWRIGHT, EMBARRASS, ACQUIT, HARASS, and PRONUNCIATION.
HIRSCHSPRUNG'S (DISEASE) has seven consecutive consonants, as does SCHTSCHUROWSKIA.
Beijing and Fiji have three dotted letters in a row.
The alphabetical sequence -RSTU- is contained in OVERSTUFF, OVERSTUDIOUS, OVERSTUNK, UNDERSTUFF, UNDERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUD, OVERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUFF, UNDERSTUDY, and BIERSTUBE.
The only other four-letter alphabetical sequence found in English is -MNOP-, which is found, for example, in these words: CREMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPAEDIC, GYMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPLAST, LIMNOPHILE, LIMNOPHORA, LIMNOPHORID, LIMNOPLANKTON, SEMNOPITHECINE, SOMNOPATHY, and THAMNOPHILE.
If the alphabet is treated as a continuous loop, however, there is also -YZAB- in ANALYZABLE.
Here are some examples words containing double letters, for each letter of the alphabet: AARDVARK, ABBOT, ACCENT, ADD, FEED, OFF, EGG, WITHHOLD, SKIING, AVIJJA, BOOKKEEPER, ILL, IMMUNE, ANNOY, HOOP, APPLE, HUQQA, ARRAY, KISS, LITTLE, VACUUM, SAVVY, SLOWWORM, WAXXENN, CUBBYYEW, and DAZZLE.
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS is the longest word consisting entirely of alternating vowels and consonants.
The longest common word without any of the five vowels is RHYTHMS.
The shortest word containing all five vowels exactly once is the six-letter EUNOIA, meaning alertness of mind an will (and also the title of a book by Canadian poet Christian Bok).
The shortest word with the five vowels occurring in alphabetical order is AERIOUS (airy), which has seven letters. The longest such word is PHRAGELLIORHYNCHUS (a protozoan) with 18 letters.
ULTRAREVOLUTIONARIES has each vowel exactly twice. The shortest such word is CUBOIDEONAVICULARE, and the longest, USSOLZEWIECHINOGAMMARUS (a small crustacean).
Some English words..................
Floccinaucinihilipilification = It means "the estimation of something as worthless."
Examples: I loved him for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of money. --William Shenstone, Letters
Some more english words:
They must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccinaucinihilipilification of all that can gratify the outward man. --Sir Walter Scott, Journal
The longest word in the dictionary containing no letter more than once is "smiley." (There is a mile between the first and last letter.)
The question of determining the longest English word inevitably boils down to defining what is acceptable as a word, since prefixes/suffixes can be adjoined to words to make longer words and because medical/chemical terms can get arbitrarily long. Further, most contenders for the honor of being the longest word are likely to be very rare in actual usage - so rare, in fact that they could be considered nonce words. The most common candidates for the crown, in my opinion, are
antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters),
floccinaucinihilipilification(29 letters) and
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis (45 letters).
The first is the only one of the three that was not specifically constructed for the purpose of being a very long word. It means opposition to the separation of church and state. The second, meaning the estimation of something as worthless, is the longest non-technical word in the OED. The latter, supposedly a lung disease, appears to be a semi-serious concoction.
Lexically interesting words. .
Longest word without a vowel:
symphysy.
Runners-up: nymphly, rhythms, gypsyfy, gypsyry.
Excluding 'y': crwths.
Longest word with at most 1 vowel:
glycyphyllin, psychorhythm.
Word with most vowels:
counterrevolutionaries.
Word with most consecutive vowels (5):
cooeeing, miaoued, miaouing, queueing. (Euouae, consisting of nothing but 6 vowels, is of doubtful legitimacy.)
Smallest word with all 5 vowels:
eulogia, miaoued, sequoia.
Longest word with only 3 distinct alphabets:
seeresses.
Longest word with only 4 distinct alphabets:
senselessness.
Longest word with no repeated letter:
dermatoglyphics.
Longest word with letters in alphabetical order:
aegilops.
Longest word with letters in reverse alphabetical order:
trollied.
Longest word that can be typed with the right hand alone
(on a qwerty keyboard): phyllophyllin.
Longest word that can be typed with the left hand alone
(on a qwerty keyboard): devertebrated.
Longest word that can be typed using the top row
(of a qwerty keyboard): rupturewort.
Runners-up: peppertree, pepperwort, perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, tetterwort, typewriter.
Interesting words with the substring 'uu':
continuum, fatuus, menstruum, residiuum, vacuum.
Word with the maximum number of distinct alphabets (16):
blepharoconjunctivitis, formaldehydesulphoxylic, pneumoventriculography, pseudolamellibranchiate, superacknowledgment.
Word with most a's :
astragalocalcaneal, calcaneoastragalar, taramasalata.
Word with most e's (7):
electrotelethermometer.
Word with most i's :
impossibilification, indistinguishability, indivisibility, minimifidianism, pericardiomediastinitis.
Word with most o's :
choledochoduodenostomy, duodenocholedochotomy, monogonoporous, odontonosology, proctocolonoscopy, pseudomonocotyledonous, zoologicoarchaeologist.
Word with most u's (5):
untumultous.
Words with four consecutive letters of the alphabet appearing consecutively:
mnop: cremnophobia, gymnopaedic, gymnoplast, limnophile, somnopathy
(and a few others). rstu: overstudy, overstuff, understudy, afterstudy, overstudious, superstuff, understuff.
Words with four consecutive letters of the alphabet appearing consecutively in reverse order:
ponm: tamponment, weaponmaker.
Words with 3 consecutive s's:
bossship, headmistressship, patronessship.
The last word:
zyzzyva.
TYPEWRITER (10 letters) can be typed using only the top row of keys on a standard keyboard.
FICKLEHEADED and FIDDLEDEEDEE are the longest English words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet, each being 12 letters long.
PARADIGM was the word most frequently looked up in 1998 in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
The words most likely to be misspelled (ratio of incorrect to correct spelling) according to a study of Usenet traffic some years ago were DUMBELL, OCCURRENCE, MEMENTO, FRUSTUM, COLLECTIBLE, AMATEUR, DAIQUIRI, PASTIME, ACCIDENTALLY, PLAYWRIGHT, EMBARRASS, ACQUIT, HARASS, and PRONUNCIATION.
HIRSCHSPRUNG'S (DISEASE) has seven consecutive consonants, as does SCHTSCHUROWSKIA.
Beijing and Fiji have three dotted letters in a row.
The alphabetical sequence -RSTU- is contained in OVERSTUFF, OVERSTUDIOUS, OVERSTUNK, UNDERSTUFF, UNDERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUD, OVERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUFF, UNDERSTUDY, and BIERSTUBE.
The only other four-letter alphabetical sequence found in English is -MNOP-, which is found, for example, in these words: CREMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPAEDIC, GYMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPLAST, LIMNOPHILE, LIMNOPHORA, LIMNOPHORID, LIMNOPLANKTON, SEMNOPITHECINE, SOMNOPATHY, and THAMNOPHILE.
If the alphabet is treated as a continuous loop, however, there is also -YZAB- in ANALYZABLE.
Here are some examples words containing double letters, for each letter of the alphabet: AARDVARK, ABBOT, ACCENT, ADD, FEED, OFF, EGG, WITHHOLD, SKIING, AVIJJA, BOOKKEEPER, ILL, IMMUNE, ANNOY, HOOP, APPLE, HUQQA, ARRAY, KISS, LITTLE, VACUUM, SAVVY, SLOWWORM, WAXXENN, CUBBYYEW, and DAZZLE.
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS is the longest word consisting entirely of alternating vowels and consonants.
The longest common word without any of the five vowels is RHYTHMS.
The shortest word containing all five vowels exactly once is the six-letter EUNOIA, meaning alertness of mind an will (and also the title of a book by Canadian poet Christian Bok).
The shortest word with the five vowels occurring in alphabetical order is AERIOUS (airy), which has seven letters. The longest such word is PHRAGELLIORHYNCHUS (a protozoan) with 18 letters.
ULTRAREVOLUTIONARIES has each vowel exactly twice. The shortest such word is CUBOIDEONAVICULARE, and the longest, USSOLZEWIECHINOGAMMARUS (a small crustacean).
Some English words..................
Floccinaucinihilipilification = It means "the estimation of something as worthless."
Examples: I loved him for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of money. --William Shenstone, Letters
Some more english words:
They must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccinaucinihilipilification of all that can gratify the outward man. --Sir Walter Scott, Journal
The longest word in the dictionary containing no letter more than once is "smiley." (There is a mile between the first and last letter.)
Chand meri zameen phool mera watan
SupremeSohni