What is the longest word in the english language?

[DeeBye]

I used to believe that the longest word in the english language was "antidisestablishmentarianism". That's a really long word, and it looks like it means something. Plus, I think I saw it on Jeopardy. That lends a lot of credibility. Alex Trebek doesn't lie.

There is another word, longer than "antidisestablishmentarianism". I am going to paste it here using quote tags.

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanyla lanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalany lphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspa rtylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleu cylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspar tylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylser ylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonyliso leucylglutaminylaspfraginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylpheny lalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcyste inylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylargin ylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylgl ycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylpheny lalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalany ltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylva lylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglu taminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalan ylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucy lphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartyl aspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryl tyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylseryl arginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparag inylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucy lvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalany lprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylser ylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylas partylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylser ylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhi stidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethio nylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylp rolylmethion yllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine.

Personally, I think someone let their cat loose on a keyboard and saved the result in a text file. This is not a word. I once let my 2 year old son mash away at my keyboard and he came up with something similar. It had a lot more "4"s though, because my son likes the number 4. Just because you label it a "medical term" doesn't mean it's a real word.

Besides, anyone who has ever watched Star Trek 2 knows that the longest word in the english dictionary was uttered by Captain James T. Kirk.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

edit: "Captian" is not "Captain"

[whyBish]

Just because you label it a "medical term" doesn't mean it's a real word.

It's a chemical compound, not a medical term, although I have no clue what it is... also if it is acceptable, then I gues there would be longer ones also.

[Zarathustra]

What about floccinaucinihilipilification? :blink:

[Baylan]

In 7th and 8th grade (I had the same teacher for both grades) I had an English teacher who gave vocab lists that had infamous "number 10" words that were quite unusual. Flibbertigibbet (a word, even if I don't spell it right...), kerfuffle, sesquepedalian (again, a word, even if I can't spell), ort, futtock, and other assorted words. For the last liste of 8th grade, he gave us a number 11 word for a point of extra credit if we could spell it and give the definition. The word is... *drumrole*

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a lung disease caused by the silicon in a volcanic eruption.

I still remember it, and bust it out when people talk about long words...

Fact of the matter is, I still remember these stinkin' words and its been 3 years!

He showed us the above word, 1800ish letters, I believe? And it was some kind of a compound with 26 different types of alge or something similar... Can't remember exactly. Now that would be a tough word to spell :-P

Baylan

[DeeBye]

What about floccinaucinihilipilification?  :blink:
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Floccinaucinihilipilification is no KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

[teenagedeathboy]

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a lung disease caused by the silicon in a volcanic eruption.

My dad made me memorize that word when I was in third grade.

[Walkiry]

It's a chemical compound, not a medical term, although I have no clue what it is... also if it is acceptable, then I gues there would be longer ones also.
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It's a polypeptide, actually (that is, a protein). One of the little known secrets of biology is that you can name the proteins by their chemical composition by simply chaining the names of the aminoacids in the fashion described there.

The other way (most commonly used when writting stuff and not just speaking) is to use one letter codes for each aminoacid. In the example, "methionyl" would become "M" or "Met" (short for Methyonine) if you use 3-letter code, "glutaminyl" becomes "Q" or "Gln", and so on.

So yes, you can make it as long as you want (arbitrarily long in fact, at least as a "theoretical" compound), but for "real" proteins, the longest I can think of is the cardiac variant of Titin, with a staggering length of 26,926 aminoacids (if you then take an average of, say, 8 letters when constructing the chemical composition the "hard way", it comes with over 215,000 characters, what a word!),

[Jeunemaitre]

There is another word, longer than "antidisestablishmentarianism".  I am going to paste it here using quote tags.

I guess this is what happens when some organic chemist decides he wants to feel important. Incidentally, if you've ever looked very closely at the package insert info from prescription meds, the chemical names for some of those products are quite interesting (though not as long as the conglomeration that Deebye has given us to choke through). Take the following example: Zyvox (Registered trade mark of Pfizer Inc) is an antibiotic that I did a project on a little while ago. Its generic name is linezolid, and its chemical name is (S)-N-[[3-[3-Fluoro-4-(4-morpholinyl)phenyl]-2-oxo-5-oxazolidinyl] methyl]-acetamide.

Rather than long words, I like complicated ones, especially when they name or describe complicated things. My current favorite is heteroskedasticity. I'm not sure I really understand what it means, but it describes a quality of the variation of data in a regression analysis.

I also lately have been captivated by eunoia. I first heard it in a story on NPR (National Public Radio) about a "sound poet" named Christian Bok. He wrote a book called "Eunoia" (which is, I am lead to believe, the shortest word in the English language that uses all five vowels, and it means "beautify thinking"). This book is composed of five primary chapters, each using only words with a given vowel (the A chapter for instance). He required himself to use as many available words as possible (up to 80% of the available vocabulary I think) while preventing repetition of any word more than a few times. My wife gave me the book for Hanukah, but I haven't had a chance to start reading it yet.

[eppie]

It's a chemical compound, not a medical term, although I have no clue what it is... also if it is acceptable, then I gues there would be longer ones also.
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It is a "chemical compound"....to be more clear, by the looks of it is a peptide. (so biological even)

Oops I just saw Walkiry's reply.

Anyway, I don't know if you can call something like this a word. You just name all the amino acids in a peptide (protein) and put them in a row. I mean if you want you can also give the chemical name of each of your DNA molecules.....but that would not make sense. (and you would need a bloody good computer)
To go on to the next bit:

jeunemaitre
I guess this is what happens when some organic chemist decides he wants to feel important.

You are wrong here. An organic chemist tries to gives these things a trival name, he would never use a word like this "to look cool".
Plus, an organic chemist IS important...not like a bank director or so, but real important. :)

Anyway, to make things easy organic chemist like to give molecules that are much and much smaller already trivial names....when talking about them.
The words people use in commercials are NOT trvila names, they are BS names.
(like wrinklegoaway-a-tine and so).

Apparently the oilfields of venezuala consist of one big polymer (they have to cut it to put it in barrels) .....try naming that one.

[Jeunemaitre]

Plus, an organic chemist IS important...not like a bank director or so, but real important. :)

I in no way intend to impune the importance of organic chemists. I work for a company that does research for pharmaceutical firms. My livelihood is dependant upon chemists, so I understand the contribution that these individuals make to society. Perhaps "important" was the wrong word in this case. I should have said "I guess this is what happens when an organic chemist chooses to employ his knowledge to confuse others by use of jargon, and inflate his importance in the eyes of the underappreciative through display of said knowledge." Don't mean to offend anyone, just wanted to pass off a sense of someone flaunting their scientific vocablary in order to demonstrate their place as a scientific superior.

I could go around tossing out comments about the complexity of the models I build, but there's no point. I'd only be fishing for awe-filled compliments, from people who were trying to be polite while they actually couldn't less; and I'm secure in my conceit, I don't need my ego boosted by anyone else.:P

Sorry if I've offended any chem-o-philes

[SpazBear]

Don't mean to offend anyone, just wanted to pass off a sense of someone flaunting their scientific vocablary in order to demonstrate their place as a scientific superior.
*snip*
Sorry if I've offended any chem-o-philes
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These drug names are usually the product of the Marketing departments, not the chemists who invented them.....

[eppie]

Sorry if I've offended any chem-o-philes
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I don't get easily offended....just wanted to make a statement. :D

eppie

[Jeunemaitre]

These drug names are usually the product of the Marketing departments, not the chemists who invented them.....

The brand names certainly are, but I'm not so sure about the generic names. As another note, the logo and color scheme are also products of marketing folks, and goodness knows that not all of those are a hit.

[Mithrandir]

So yes, you can make it as long as you want (arbitrarily long in fact, at least as a "theoretical" compound), but for "real" proteins, the longest I can think of is the cardiac variant of Titin, with a staggering length of 26,926 aminoacids (if you then take an average of, say, 8 letters when constructing the chemical composition the "hard way", it comes with over 215,000 characters, what a word!),
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Titin is indeed the longest protein, but if you want to get really out of control, think about the proteoglycan Hyaluronate. Mr = 2*10^8 - it's the size of a small bacterial cell. Best of luck to anyone wishing to name all the individual parts of that badboy.

The fact that Hyaluronate is also one of the most stable molecules in the body just goes to show how amazing evolution is.

[Occhidiangela]

Apparently the oilfields of venezuala consist of one big polymer (they have to cut it  to put it in barrels)  .....try naming that one.
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Crude petroleum. :blink:

Occhi

[Rhydderch Hael]

Crude petroleum.  :blink:

Occhi
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Oh. I thought it was the filling you find inside a Hostess Twinkie for some reason...

[Fragbait]

Why, there are some long words:
AskOxford

That link should answer it all.

Greetings, Fragbait

[jahcs]

Dictionary writers tend to regard such names as 'verbal formulae', rather than as English words.

Thanks Fragbait. That was the premise I was thinking of that I couldn't articulate into a reply. I remember learning most of the rules for naming chemical compounds, I just can't remember what I learned. :whistling: