Coinage
This word was invented in 1935 by Everett M. Smith, president of the National Puzzlers' League, at its annual meeting. The word figured in the headline for an article published by the New York Herald Tribune on February 23, 1935, titled "Puzzlers Open 103d Session Here by Recognizing 45-Letter Word":
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis succeeded electrophotomicrographically as the longest word in the English language recognized by the National Puzzlers' League at the opening session of the organization's 103rd semi-annual meeting held yesterday at the Hotel New Yorker. The puzzlers explained that the forty-five-letter word is the name of a special form of silicosis caused by ultra-microscopic particles of silica volcanic dust...
Subsequently, the word was used in a puzzle book, Bedside Manna, after which members of the NPL campaigned to have it included in major dictionaries.
This 45-letter word, referred to as P45, first appeared in the 1939 supplement to the Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary, Second Edition.
Read more about this topic: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicolvolcanoconiosis
Famous quotes containing the word coinage:
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)