List Of Top 15 Longest Words In The English Language

English Language Introduction

English is a funny language. We tend to add our own rules when we aren’t sure of the correct usage and make it sound goofier. We ask each other- if the plural or “house” is “houses”, then why isn’t the plural of “mouse” “mouses”? Why is it “mice”? The vowels of our language include- a, e, I, o, u; which means we must add “an” before any word starting from one of these letters. Example- an apple, an eagle, an owl. But for the word “university” or “universe”, we don’t use the word “an” before it. Why? After all it starts from a vowel. There are innumerable rules to be followed when using the English language. But have you ever wondered what some of the longest words in English are?

Yes, this article is about some of the longest English words on record. No, you will not find the longest word in English in this article, which is actually the chemical name for the titin protein found in humans. Its full name has 189,819 letters and may take a little less than 3 hours to be pronounced. However, the article will provide you with the list of longest words In English.

The identity of the longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes a word in the English language essay, as well as how length should be compared. 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. 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).

Although chemical names can be extraordinarily long, we've stuck with actual words you can find in the dictionary. So here’s our list of the 15 longest words of English dictionary:

1. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Supposedly the longest English word found in major dictionaries, this 45-letter long word denotes a lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica or quartz dust.

2. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

A word of 36 letters, it refers to fear of monstrously multisyllabic words i.e fear of long words. Again an irony, as it itself is a really long word! In humorous contexts, this word is most often used. It is an extension of the word “sesquipedalophobia,” which is used more often in a formal context and has the same meaning.

3. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism

This 30-letter word is in fact the name of a rare, painful genetic disorder that, according to the National Health Institutions, causes “short stature, round face and short hand bones” as well as the hardening of soft tissue.

4. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

This word consists of 34 letters. It refers to “extraordinarily good; wonderful”. In fact, as a child, if you watched Mary Poppins, you would be familiar with this word. She described it as the word to use “when you have nothing to say”. It became famous for its use in a song with the same title in the film “Mary Poppins.”

5. Floccinaucinihilipilification

This word consists of 29 letters. It refers to the act or habit of describing or regarding something as valueless. Ironically, Floccinaucinihilipilification is a pretty valueless word itself; it is almost never used except as a long-word example.

6. Honorificabilitudinitatibus

A word of Latin origin, honorificabilitudinitatibus is an expression to mean “with honorableness.” What is more interesting about this 27-letter long word is that it is the longest word of English language, in which the vowels and consonants consistently alternate.

7. Antidisestablishmentarianism

This twenty-eight letters word originally described opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England, but now it may refer to any opposition to withdrawing government support of a particular church or religion.

8. Paraskavedekatriaphobia

This word consists of 23 letters which refers to the fear of Friday the 13th.

9. Rhombicosidodecahedron

This 22-letter word is a 3D uniform polyhedron bounded by 20 regular triangular faces, 30 square faces, 12 regular pentagonal faces, 60 vertices and 120 edges. The term has also been used in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory”.

10. Incomprehensibility

This 21-letter adjective is related to the word “incomprehensible”, meaning something that is “impossible to comprehend/understand”. It can also describe a condition in which someone is incomprehensible or misunderstood.

11. Valetudinarianism

This 17-letter word refers to the condition or state of mind of a sickly or weak person who is incessantly worried about personal health.

12. Triskaidekaphobia

The 13-letter word refers to an extreme superstition regarding the number 13.

13. Subdermatoglyphic

It refers to something pertaining to the layer of skin beneath the fingertips. The 13-letter word is the longest English word with no repeated letters.

14. Strengths

Surely, this word does not come close to some of the absurdly long words of English language, et it deserves to be on the list because this word is perhaps the longest word of the English language that is almost made up of consonants, with the exception of one single vowel. The 9 letters the long word has only one vowel ‘e’, while all the other 8 letters composing the word are consonants.

15. Euouae

This is another surprising entry in the list of the longest words of English. Moreover, the word seems more like a string of vowels than an actual orthographic word. Indeed, euouae is a musical term that was once used during medieval times. More specifically, it is a type of cadence in medieval music. What is more interesting about this word, it is recognized as the longest word in the English language which is made up of nothing but vowels by the Guinness Book of World Records. 

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John Joseph 22 Sep, 2020