Longest Word in English - Words With Certain Characteristics of Notable Length

Words With Certain Characteristics of Notable Length

  • Strengths is the longest word in the English language containing only one vowel.
  • Schmaltzed and strengthed appear to be the longest monosyllabic words recorded in OED; but if squirrelled is pronounced as one syllable only (as permitted in SOED for squirrel), it is the longest.
  • Euouae, a medieval musical term, is the longest English word consisting only of vowels, and the word with the most consecutive vowels. However, the "word" itself is simply a mnemonic consisting of the vowels to be sung in the phrase "seculorum Amen" at the end of the lesser doxology. (Although u was often used interchangeably with v, and the variant "Evovae" is occasionally used, the v in these cases would still be a vowel.)
  • The longest words with no repeated letters are dermatoglyphics, misconjugatedly and uncopyrightables.
  • The longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus. However, this is arguably both Latin and a proper noun. There are several six-letter English words with their letters in alphabetical order, including almost, biopsy, and chintz.
  • The longest words recorded in OED with each vowel only once, and in order, are abstemiously, affectiously, and tragediously (OED). Fracedinously and gravedinously (constructed from adjectives in OED) have thirteen letters; Gadspreciously, constructed from Gadsprecious (in OED), has fourteen letters. Facetiously is among the few other words directly attested in OED with single occurrences of all five vowels and the semivowel y.
  • The longest single palindromic word in English is rotavator, another name for a rotary tiller for breaking and aerating soil.

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Famous quotes containing the words words, notable and/or length:

    Certainly, words can be as abusive as any blow. . . . When a three-year-old yells, “You’re so stupid! What a dummy!” it doesn’t carry the same weight as when a mother yells those words to a child. . . . Even if you don’t physically abuse young children, you can still drive them nuts with your words.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    a notable prince that was called King John;
    And he ruled England with main and with might,
    For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.
    —Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)

    The light that was shadowed then
    Was seen to be our lives,
    Everything about us that love might wish to examine,
    Then put away for a certain length of time, until
    The whole is to be reviewed, and we turned
    Toward each other, to each other.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)