What are the longest – biggest words in English?

Language is the heritage of human history. Since prehistoric times, people have used language to communicate. Without proper language, there would be no exchange of ideas, messages, and comments. Till now, all the development we have witnessed in the Modern world is due to the sharing of brilliant ideas. All the modern inventions, from basic cooking skills to developing a rocket engine, are a contribution of language. No proper language means that ideas of brilliant minds would go in vain if there’s no guidance to work on them.

There have been more than 35000 languages since the beginning of time. There are only 5000 living languages currently, some of which are on the verge of extinction. As most ancient languages disappeared in the pages of history, the human race does not know much about it. We do not even know if they had proper grammar rules or something. Among the remaining languages that have managed to survive the harshness of history, let’s consider English. English is the World’s most spoken language. Thus, it is also a language with one of the most extensive vocabularies in the world.

How many words exactly does the English Language contain? The second edition of the current 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has about 171,476 words in its current use. 171,476 words is quite a lot. A human being cannot memorize this much amount of words, let alone the biggest words. Among these hundreds of thousands of words, some words are long enough for a normal person to memorize. Though most of these lengthy words are not in common use that much, you will still find it intriguing to know what even such words are and what do mean.

Outset

Consonants together with verbs form a word. The length of a word depends on the number of letters it contains. Lengthy words are very uncommon in daily use, though some scientific terms are extremely lengthy. Similarly, there are also some lengthy adjectives and nouns that people use rarely. Instead, they use the synonyms of these words. Let us see what these words are.

What are the biggest words in English?

Here are some of the biggest or you can say lengthiest words in the English language. Accordingly, We have written them down along with their meanings so that it would be easier for you to learn them.

• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: This word contains 36 letters. It is one of the longest words in the dictionary. It is the name for a phobia of long words.
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: This word has 34 letters. People consider it the best word among other lengthy words. The film Mary Poppins introduced this word. It means you have got something to say while having nothing to say.
• Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism: This word contains 30 letters. It is A relatively mild form of pseudohypoparathyroidism that has normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood.
• Floccinaucinihilipilification: This word is 29 letters long. It is the longest non-technical word that not all dictionaries recognize, including Merriam-Webster. Different sources say that it means to describe something as unimportant, valueless, or worthless.
• Antidisestablishmentarianism: This term is 28 letters long. It is the name of a political movement from 19th-century Britain. This movement wanted to separate church and state.
• Honorificabilitudinitatibus: This word has 27 letters. It is the longest word in all of Shakespeare’s works. Also, It is the longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels.
• Thyroparathyroidectomized: This word is 25 letters long. It is a medical term that defines the excision of the thyroid and parathyroid glands.
• Dichlorodifluoromethane: This word is 23 letters long. It is the name of the chemical compound, chlorofluoromethane CF2Cl2.
• Incomprehensibilities: This word has 21 letters. It means things that are impossible to comprehend.

The Longest Word in English

The longest word in English is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It contains 45 letters, among which 20 of them are verbs while the remaining 25 letters are consonants. It is the name of lung disease that the inhalation of silica or quartz dust causes. This word contains 5 different parts among which “pneumono” means lungs or anything related to lungs. Similarly, the part “ultramicroscopic” means something so small that can only be seen with a microscope. Lastly, the remaining three parts “silico” means silica, “volcano” means something volcanic, and the word “coniosis” means a disease that the dust causes. The origins of this word trace back to New Latin. It is a disease that the inhalation of fine volcanic ash or sand dust causes. I recommend you to know What are the 10 longest words in English?

Other Languages Having Biggest Words

It is not just the English language that has the lengthiest words. There are some other languages having words so long that a beginner may not end up spelling them right. We have enlisted these languages below:

• Basque
• Esperanto
• Estonian
• Finnish
• Ojibwe
• Mongolian
• Hungarian
• Korean

The Use of Lengthy Words

If you read a lot of books, interviews, articles, and blogs, you will notice that these writings use short words. The lengthy words that we have discussed above, have very low usage. Furthermore, they are not common English words. Most of these lengthy words are medical terms or names of medical conditions that people witness rarely. To be honest, no one would ask you to spell a lung disease called pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is caused by inhalation of silica or quartz dust. Nevertheless, we will suggest you learn some lengthy words as an adventure to increase your vocabulary.

The Impact of Lengthy Words in Translation

Most writings do not contain lengthy words, as this affects their readability. Writers know that people despise such lengthy words. Their lives are so busy. Consequently, they do not care to consider reading such words. As most of these words are the names of medical conditions, disorders, and chemical compounds, they do not need to be translated. People do not translate proper nouns. However, verbs and adjectives, like “incomprehensible,” need translation. Also, when dealing with translations, consider not hurrying, as you might end up getting some lengthy words misspelled.

How to spell lengthy words?

Spelling lengthy words might feel like pulling a sword from a stone to you, but not if you are adventurous. Likewise, there is a particular way to do everything; there is also a way to learn lengthy words and their meanings. Learning their meanings is of no use if you don’t know how to spell them. The main challenge in learning lengthy words is their spelling. Therefore, slight spelling errors can make the whole word incorrect. Further, the key to learning lengthy words is breaking them into smaller parts. You can make fragments of these words and learn them in order. Subsequently, this would make the process easier for you.

Wind-up

Today’s world is a busy place. Hence, People, especially the younger generation, rarely get the time for themselves, so it is nothing new that they go for shortcuts. As technology has advanced and life has gotten busier, people try to be more efficient. They save time, even if it’s just a few minutes. It is clear that people do not choose long words in their conversations and documents.

They will choose short words in documents to make them easier to read. They use slang in conversations to save time and avoid long texts. Also, these words are used very frequently. Nevertheless, it is not quite hard to learn these words just in case you would want to flex your vocabulary over your friends. Having such words learned will probably impress others by.