The Long and the Short of it

Have you ever wondered about the longest word in the English language? I grew curious after I
heard the word lymphosarcoma. Actually, Amitabh Bachhan of Bollywood famously diagnosed
Rajesh Khanna with ‘lymphosarcoma of the intestine’ in a touching Bollywood movie called
‘Anand’. That’s how I came to know about lymphosarcoma.

It turns out that the longest word in the English language depends upon what words form part of
your investigation. Are you including only such words that are derived naturally from the
language’s roots? Are you allowing words that have been formed by coinage and construction?
Are you considering place names and technical terms? Now, technical terms can be as long as
you want. Also, the units of measurement can even differ. Length can be measured by the
number of written letters in a word or the number of phonemes in that word.

Here is a table giving out longest words with various criteria of measure:

Word Letter Characteristic Dispute

s
Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl... 189,81 Chemical name Technical; not in
isoleucine 9 of titin, the dictionary;
largest known disputed
protein whether it is a
word
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsano...pte 183 Longest word Coined; not in
rygon coined by a dictionary;
major author Greek
transliteration
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis 45 Longest word in Technical;
a major coined to be the
dictionary longest word
Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism 30 Longest non- Technical
coined word in a
major dictionary
Floccinaucinihilipilification 29 Longest Coined
nontechnical
word
Antidisestablishmentarianism 28 Longest non-
coined and
nontechnical
word
Honorificabilitudinitatibus 27 Longest word in Latin
Shakespeare's
works

Let’s take the longest nontechnical coined word, floccinaucinihilipilification. (I chose this
criterion because technical words can be as long as you wish, for example,
zzzzzzyyyyyyxxxxxyyyyyyyyuuuuttttttttppppppp, etc)Do you know what
floccinaucinihilipilification means? I didn’t till I found out from wiki. It means
‘estimation of something as worthless’. Well, if a 29 letter word ‘estimates something as
worthless’ then the appropriate synonym for such a word would be
‘makeamountainoutaofamolehill’.

I am sure you know the shortest word(s) in English. I … a … burrrrp, excuse me, needn’t
burp it out.