Major Dictionaries
The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis. The word was deliberately coined to be the longest word in English, and has since been used in a close approximation of its originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to its claim.
The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).
The longest non-technical word in major dictionaries is floccinaucinihilipilification at 29 letters. Consisting of a series of Latin words meaning "nothing" and defined as "the act of estimating something as worthless"; its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741.
Read more about this topic: Longest Word In English
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or dictionaries:
“The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“You evidently do not suffer from “quotation-hunger” as I do! I get all the dictionaries of quotations I can meet with, as I always want to know where a quotation comes from.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)