Changes and what bots you wants

Nigggggggggga The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of "word" and of length.

Words may be derived naturally from the language's roots or formed by coinage and construction. Additionally, comparisons are complicated because place names may be considered words, technical terms may be arbitrarily long, and the addition of suffixes and prefixes may extend the length of words to create grammatically correct but unused or novel words. Different dictionaries include and omit different words.

The length of a word may also be understood in multiple ways. Most commonly, length is based on orthography (conventional spelling rules) and counting the number of written letters. Alternate, but less common, approaches include phonology (the spoken language) and the number of phonemes (sounds).

Word Letters Meaning Claim Dispute methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl By virtue of having one more letter than antidisestablishmentarianism, this is the longest non-technical English word. A mash-up of five Latin elements, it refers to the act of describing something as having little or no value. While it made the cut in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster volumes refuse to recognize it, chalking up its existence to little more than linguistic ephemera.

7. Subdermatoglyphic At 17 characters, this is often considered the longest isogram, a word in which every letter is used only once, and refers to the underlying dermal matrix that determines the pattern formed by the whorls, arches, and ridges of our fingerprints.

8. Squirrelled Though the more commonly accepted American English version carries only one L, the version with two is fully accepted—and in some accents it’s pronounced as one-syllable, making it possibly the longest non-coined monosyllabic English word at 11 letters.

9. Transtendinous Are you having a surgery that might involve going through the tendon? Then you might hear the word transtendinous thrown around. Are you at a conference of lexicographers? You might hear transtendinous thrown around as, at 14 letters, potentially the longest English word to use all five vowels in order exactly once. But as that word (and the equally 14-letter lamelligomphus, a dragonfly genus) has yet to enter the hallowed halls of the better dictionaries, you might be better off with the 12 letters of abstemiously and affectiously, both of which have a pleasing Y to round out the word (and a special shout out to uncomplimentary, which, at 15 letters, has all five—though not the Y—in reverse alphabetical order).

10. Tattarrattat At 12 letters, this word—coined by James Joyce in Ulysses and meaning a knocking at the door—is likely the longest palindromic word in English.

Joyce had a penchant for coining weird words that no one uses, so a better candidate for longest non-coined palindromic word in major dictionaries might be the nine-letter Malayalam, which is a Dravidian language spoken in parts of India. (A third candidate—detartrated—appears in some chemical glossaries and older food science publications, but is rarely included in dictionaries.)

11. and 12. Euouae and Psst Euouae and psst are the longest words comprised entirely of either vowels or consonants appearing in a major dictionary. Euouae, a medieval musical term, is technically a mnemonic, but has been accepted as a word in itself.

As for longest without vowels, Guinness World Records gives the record for “Longest word in the English language without any of the five main vowels” as twyndyllyngs, the plural of an obscure 15th-century variant of an obscure now dialectical word meaning “twin.” But as American students learn, Y is sometimes a vowel.

Some argue cwtch (cupboard/hiding place or a special hug) or crwth (a type of musical instrument) hold the record, but in both of those, the W is taking the vowel role, as it can happily do in the Welsh both are loaned from. For something with neither a vowel letter nor a vowel sound, the best option is likely psst, which is a fully accepted word in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Austin Thompson contributed to this piece. A version of this story ran in 2016; it has been updated for 2022.

Related Tags CULTURE WORDS LANGUAGE SPACE NEWS Pop Culture LISTS

By virtue of having one more letter than antidisestablishmentarianism, this is the longest non-technical English word. A mash-up of five Latin elements, it refers to the act of describing something as having little or no value. While it made the cut in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster volumes refuse to recognize it, chalking up its existence to little more than linguistic ephemera.

7. Subdermatoglyphic At 17 characters, this is often considered the longest isogram, a word in which every letter is used only once, and refers to the underlying dermal matrix that determines the pattern formed by the whorls, arches, and ridges of our fingerprints.

8. Squirrelled Though the more commonly accepted American English version carries only one L, the version with two is fully accepted—and in some accents it’s pronounced as one-syllable, making it possibly the longest non-coined monosyllabic English word at 11 letters.

9. Transtendinous Are you having a surgery that might involve going through the tendon? Then you might hear the word transtendinous thrown around. Are you at a conference of lexicographers? You might hear transtendinous thrown around as, at 14 letters, potentially the longest English word to use all five vowels in order exactly once. But as that word (and the equally 14-letter lamelligomphus, a dragonfly genus) has yet to enter the hallowed halls of the better dictionaries, you might be better off with the 12 letters of abstemiously and affectiously, both of which have a pleasing Y to round out the word (and a special shout out to uncomplimentary, which, at 15 letters, has all five—though not the Y—in reverse alphabetical order).

10. Tattarrattat At 12 letters, this word—coined by James Joyce in Ulysses and meaning a knocking at the door—is likely the longest palindromic word in English.

Joyce had a penchant for coining weird words that no one uses, so a better candidate for longest non-coined palindromic word in major dictionaries might be the nine-letter Malayalam, which is a Dravidian language spoken in parts of India. (A third candidate—detartrated—appears in some chemical glossaries and older food science publications, but is rarely included in dictionaries.)

11. and 12. Euouae and Psst Euouae and psst are the longest words comprised entirely of either vowels or consonants appearing in a major dictionary. Euouae, a medieval musical term, is technically a mnemonic, but has been accepted as a word in itself.

As for longest without vowels, Guinness World Records gives the record for “Longest word in the English language without any of the five main vowels” as twyndyllyngs, the plural of an obscure 15th-century variant of an obscure now dialectical word meaning “twin.” But as American students learn, Y is sometimes a vowel.

Some argue cwtch (cupboard/hiding place or a special hug) or crwth (a type of musical instrument) hold the record, but in both of those, the W is taking the vowel role, as it can happily do in the Welsh both are loaned from. For something with neither a vowel letter nor a vowel sound, the best option is likely psst, which is a fully accepted word in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Austin Thompson contributed to this piece. A version of this story ran in 2016; it has been updated for 2022.

Related Tags CULTURE WORDS LANGUAGE SPACE NEWS Pop Culture LISTS