antidisestablishmentarianism

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Longest English word as in, can be found in an English dictionary.

Try clicking on the tag 'big word' above.

Pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism=second longest English word.
antidisestablishmentarianism=third longest English word.

This word is really fun to spell out loud it has a nice pattern to it.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism (although the OUP Blog rather unkindly calls it a mere 'stunt word').

Isn't there a word for a very long word? Hippo-something?

28-letter Buzzword of the late 1960's and early 70's when everybody said it was the longest word in "the dictionary". Nobody had consulted lists of the names of EXTREMELY long and complex (replete with numbers and dashes) organic chemicals back then, apparently. I know I didn't.

I taught my spawn the pronunciation and meaning of several "large" terms. I found the child's pronunciation of non-sequitur the most amusing--especially as children are quite prone to using them.

bluebirdcry,
my father taught it to me when I was five...he got a kick out of me saying it...he taught me the word perpendicular the same day and I had to recite the meaning of that word...he didn't hold me to the meaning of the "longest" word.

I remember my father teaching this word to me as a small child. Well, smaller than I am currently.

You're right though, children armed with words such as this are quite unbearable.

It is the kind of word that brings out one's insufferable side.

I remember being so chuffed as a kid for knowing the “world's longest word”. Some might say insufferable

The REAL longest word is pnuemonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease from inhaling volcanic dust.

I think the lexicographers are irrationally attached to certain words like this. A usage note is probably the correct thing to do, but that seems unlikely in the near future.

That would be todally awesome, though I don't see it happening any time soon.

So, isn't the dictionary definition supposed to reflect a word's most common usage? If nobody uses it to mean "opposition to the belief that there should no longer be an official church in a country" then shouldn't the dictionary reflect what people do use it for, and leave it at that? With perhaps a note about what the word used to mean?

A word used more for example than for its meaning. It looks like a cityscape.

(never mind what I said. move along. nothing to see here.)