In the Danish dictionary, there is no rival to the word speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode (51 letters), but this doesn’t follow our rules, since we can’t say it’s used in daily communication. It is similar to the longest word in Swedish, realisationsvinstbeskattning (28 letters), where we also need to use 3 words: capital gains tax. The Norwegian language boasts the word menneskerettighetsorganisasjon (30 letters), which needs 3 words to translate: human rights organisation. Long words may also be found in Nordic languages. There is a similar number of letters in the Dutch word ontwikkelingssamenwerkingsorganisatie (37 letters) which means cooperation development organisation. According to our rules, first place goes to the word Telekommunikationskundenschutzverordnung (40 letters), which means telecommunication customer security regulation. In this language, new words are often created by joining multiple words. In language practice, the word may be used as follows: „Have you examined the patient electroencephalographically?“. Instead, they state electroencephalographically (27 letters) as the longest word. Maybe you have already heard of the allegedly longest word antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters), but we have to disappoint you: according to lexicographers responsible for the prestigious Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word is not used in language practice, ergo does not follow our rules. Let’s begin with one of the most popular languages: English. Let’s look at the words which are still in. it has to be usable in the language practice. the word cannot be a chemical compound andĢ. Thus, the last rule we’ll set is that all the words have to be usable in everyday communication.ġ. But if we just connect words recklessly, we only end up with a word which may exist in theory but has no use in language practice. These languages usually have longer words than others. New grammatical forms and often new words are created by adding unchanging monosemantic suffixes to word stems, or by gluing multiple words together. So in agglutinative languages the words are glued together. The expression agglutinative comes from the Latin agglutinare, i.e. Some languages teem with long words – mainly agglutinative languages. Another factor is the diversity of languages. Before we start looking for the longest words, we have to set some criteria.įirst, let’s exclude chemical compounds from the list.
If we simply took the longest word from any language, in most cases (if not all) it would be some kind of chemical compound, which 90% of people have never even heard about.
See other Vocabulary Questions.Looks like a simple topic, doesn’t it? Well, not for nothing do people say “don’t judge a book by its cover”: appearances can be deceptive. We don't tend to regard these terms as proper 'words'. These can be almost unlimited in length (for example, aminoheptafluorocyclotetraphosphonitrile, (40 letters) and many contain numerals, Roman and Greek letters, and other symbols, as well as ordinary letters. The same is true of the formal names of chemical compounds. The answer is no: they're regarded as chemical names rather than genuine words in the sense of meaningful items of vocabulary. People sometimes ask whether a DNA string can be considered as the longest English word, given that they can run to many thousands of letters. pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism - 30 letters.spectrophotofluorometrically - 28 letters.
You're unlikely to come across these words in genuine use: they're generally just provided as answers to questions about the longest words in the English language. pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a supposed lung disease - 45 letters.floccinaucinihilipilification - the estimation of something as worthless - 29 letters.antidisestablishmentarianism - opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England - 28 letters.
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