h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree i've known this as official longest word since i was in school 1957. Im glad you wrote. Gary

have you considered these words to be the longest:

elastic stretches
smile has a mile in the middle

waddabiut

dioxiriboneucleacacids? not the longest, but its long!
cheers
ford

its easy, the longest word is "NO" . it takes some people years and they still can't read it

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

it means "fear of long words"
cheers
ford

The longest word I've come across in Engliah is 1913 letters long and starts with an M. Surprisingly I'm not going to type it out, but it comes from the relaible source of Mrs Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Propostorous and Obscure Words where it takes up for pages. It's a plant enzyme. However, it's not in general circulation and is very hard to pronouce (if you want to breath)

why would anyone want to name something THAT long?!?!
cheers
ford

that should be 'there ARE 45 letters'...

I agree, spelling is important. Thorin's "Superkalafragalisticixpyaladoceouse" is really
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. You can check yourself at dictionary.com so you don't look silly.

Try Googling.

I know it's not the longest word by any means, but it sure is long: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz won a special award as the longest German word of the year. The monster word consisted of 63 letters, 20 syllables, and ten individual words—all to express a law having to do with British beef (Rindfleisch) and the so-called "mad cow disease." Rumor has it that this word was actually coined by a mad cow.

Although it is a word to strike terror in any German student, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS), the German Language Society, cited it as a good example of how German can form new words by combining existing ones.

The longest word i'v heard was said by my friend fluffy:
fabulotogoiujtyburquiiiiaboarlossnokinfutefbikedwheeereginnnnoinedconto.
He said it meant "cheesey", the dudes full of it.

The only time I've heard of that word being used - and maybe the first - it had 'ultra' on the beginning. Making ultraantidisestablishmentarianism. Was it from Disraeli ?

the longest single word in the world is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (58 letters)and here is what it means / "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave".

Can you post any links to confirm this, as i like to read more...

1. The longest word (actually there are two of them) in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is:
"pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis".

2. The other one is:
"pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses", its plural.

I wonder how many 'l's are in that eyesore of a long word.

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu was used in a song called the Lone Ranger waaaaaaaayyyyyyyy back when I was little(r) http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/quantum%20jump for proof.

Well, I believe that "invented" langages can't qualify (otherwise someone will invent a langage to have words so long that they top any others), but if Tolkien can be put in a category by itself, then we can consider the Entish. As treebeard says Entish 'is a lovely language, but it takes a long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a very long time to say.'

Apaprently each name is made of words stringed together and sung in a way that makes the name appear to be a single word... and as each Entish name describe the thing they are supposed to name with so much precision and details, they can be *very* long (like the one for orcs that Treebeard can't say in its entirety to the Hobbits as they appear to be too hurried and "their full name is as long as years of torment"...

On the other hand "Infinity" may be the longest word (for many reasons, such as the time it would take to prove that this word's meaning exist 'in reality')...