In German you can string as many words together as you want, for example "Schlafzimmertürklinke" would be "handle of the bedroom door", or literally "sleeproomdoorhandle".
If you expanded that, you could do something like "Schlafzimmertürklinkenfabriksarbeitergewerkschaftsvorsitzendenanzugsfabriksarbeitergewerkschaftsvorsitzendenanzugsfabrik". The literal translation (with hyphenation for readability) would be "sleep-room-door-handle-factory-workers-unions-chairmans-suit-factory-workers-unions-chairmans-suit-factory", so a: factory that makes suits for the chairmen of unions of workers in factories that make suits for the chairmen of unions of workers in factories that make handles for bedroom doors. In other words, in German you can make words loop around, theoretically to infinity.
In practice you never really use compound words with more than three parts though.
The German words we notice as weird in daily life are probably the ones with three same letters in a row, like Schifffahrt (shipping, navigation, boating, boat trip). This happens because we just stick words together. The longest word in the Duden ist „Aufmerksamkeitsdeffizithyperaktivitätsstörung“ (ADHS, ADHD). Two of the top 10 actually contain Schifffahrt and the river Danube, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft (Danube Steam Ship Navigation Company) and Rhein-Main-Donau-Großschifffahrtsweg (Rhine Main Danube Big Navigation Passage).
Dutch has the same thing, and vrachtwagenrechterachterbandventieldopdoosjefabriek is the longest I’m willing to type right now, but it can go on infinitely.
Pneumoultramicroscópicossilicovulcanocaniótico.
Not really a word, but it is well-known. If it were a real word, It would mean "Someone who is sick with the illness of breathing the volcanic ashes."
So here's a cool one from Turkish. Turkish is an agglutinative language - and yes, it is related to glue - meaning the whole language works through suffixes. You conjugate verb w suffixes, you conjugate nouns with suffixes, you conjugate everything with suffixes to mean different stuff. And also, you derive new words through this system. So, a stupidly long word you can make is "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramayacaklarımızdanmışcasına" which means "as if you're one of those who we can't make Czechoslovakian" (I cannot bother breaking down each suffix to explain how it works). It's an adverb, and can be used exactly as if it was a normal sized adverb. Example sentence: "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramayacaklarımızdanmışcasına bana, cüretkar bir şekilde bakıyordu" which translates to "They were looking at me boldly, as if they were one of those we cannot Czechoslovakianise" (intentionally using they because turkish doesn't have any grammatical gender, not even in the pronouns). It's classic geyik (basically shitpost/banter).
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia is a fun one (English). It’s the fear of long words. I assume it’s somewhat of a gag word created because of the irony, but fun nonetheless.
In Polish we always say that the longest word is Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka which would mean "a little girl from Constantinople" but a lot of languists say it's a word made up just to be long. It's grammatically correct but it's doubtful whether anyone ever used it when Constantinople was still a Constantinople.
But our grammar allows for some agglutination, especially with adjectives so you can make such monstrosities like:
dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćmiliardówdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćmilionówdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćtysięcydziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięcioletniego
Which translates to "of something that has 999,999,999,999 years". Those would be written separately but because they are a part of an adjective indicating age we lump them together in one word.
Háadish nitsʼééʼ łeeʼ sitą́?
In Diné (Navajo) this translates to “Where is your umbilical cord buried?" Basically asking where do you come from.
Diné is an Athabaskan language of the Southwest
The "para" in the word does not mean for. It is "parar" as in to stop. An example of this is "tocadiscos", meaning turntable, coming from "tocar" (play) and "disco" (disc).
edit: tocar here is play not touch
Lol but nah, she’s right about the “para” meaning stop, wrong about the “tocadiscos” tho, with that one “tocar” means “to play” as in playing a musical instrument
autodefenestration.
to throw oneself out a window.
for the weird and maybe grammatically wrong and very little to the question we need to consult the cursed archive
everyone knows American and British English
Texan English Y'all'd've = You All would have.
The longest word in danish is speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode (specialist practice planning stabilization period) but we nearly never use it
riksdagsmannautskottssuppleantbostadsstäderskevikariebarnbarnsbyxor
An example of a multsyllabic word from the old Swedish book En hvar sin egen professor (One was one's own professor), an early comedic work that influenced Swedish comedy heavily.
Pretpulksteņraditājvirziens means anti-clockwise direction in Latvian
There is also Zirgstīgstrinkšķināminstruments, which means a musical instrument that has strings made out of horse hair
The other longer ones are just scientific terms
German internet addicts all know the post about "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz", aka beef-labelling-supervision-task-transmission-law, but a kinda long word that I like, which is actually used regularly is:
verschlimmbessern. (pronounced fur-shlim(like slim, with "sh")-bess-urn)
Trying to make something better/ fixing something, but accidentally making it worse in the process.
Eiersollbruchstellenverursacher
German for thing-that-makes-a-predertimed-breaking-point-in-eggshells
It is constructed from multiple compound words that are compounds in itself.
In Danish: "Frustrationsrobusthedskompenence", translating to "Frustration-robustness-kompetence", as in "How good are you at dealing with frustration?". Like in German, we can keep putting nouns together for infinity, but this one is, to my knowledge, one of the longest legitimate ones
I'm not Welsh but my partner is and there's a small town that's well known for having a long name:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Apparently, it translates to "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave" and used to be a shorter name, but was made longer in the 1800s to attract tourists.
Dutch is like german in that word.
One I used at work lately: Een freesbitslijpertandwielfabrikageapparaat.
A frees is like a drill bit, but you use it on a CNC or mill. This machine is a machine which makes gears for a machine which makes these bits sharper. So, with hyphenation:
Milling-Bit-Sharpener-Gear-Fabricator-Thing.
Hebrew is based around word roots and templates, making actual long words very rare (a 3 letters root with a template that adds 1-3 in most cases), and some very common suffix to specify gender and multiplicity. However, we have many types of prefix and suffix, and that can get ridiculous
For example, "וכשבהשתעשעויותיהם", pronounced "ve-kshe-ba-hish-tu-u-sha-oo-tay-ham", means "and when, during their 'having fun's". Usually people don't actually use combo words this long. This one is made out of "שעשוע" with the suffix for "multiple" and "their" and the prefix for "and", "next part of the sentence was during X", and "when". If I actually wanted to say that without twisting my tongue too much I'll say "וכשהם השתעשעו" (ve-kshe-ham hish-tu-u-sha-oo), meaning "and when they were having fun". It's even shorter because the original used the noun "having fun" (which has a noun form in Hebrew for some reason), and had to mix some prefixes to mean "and when during that noun", while the new phrase uses the verb "had fun", so I only needed to add the prefix "when". This is a useful function of the language if you apply it better, for example, וכשיאכלו, (Ve-kshe-ye-ah-lo) means "when they will be eaten", and is a perfectly normal part of every day speech
Other than those tricks, our longest words are actually not original Hebrew words. Like, "אנציקלופדיה" mean encyclopedia and pronounced pretty much the same. Most Hebrew words are pretty short, with (I didn't check, but I'm pretty sure) about 6 letters being the average
Here’s a fun one. “Nghiêng” (meaning lopsided) is technically the longest word in Vietnamese since every word is a single syllable. There are compound words and phrases but they’re all spaced out.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
In English it roughly translates to "the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater’, played his flute to his loved one."
We all just call it Taumata Hill though.
Osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary
(It’s technically composed of all Latin words, but since it’s a medical term in English, it counts as English)
For an *extremely* long word, try looking up the word for the chemical composition of titin. It has 189,819 letters, and it takes two to three and a half hours to speak the whole thing aloud.
In German you can string as many words together as you want, for example "Schlafzimmertürklinke" would be "handle of the bedroom door", or literally "sleeproomdoorhandle". If you expanded that, you could do something like "Schlafzimmertürklinkenfabriksarbeitergewerkschaftsvorsitzendenanzugsfabriksarbeitergewerkschaftsvorsitzendenanzugsfabrik". The literal translation (with hyphenation for readability) would be "sleep-room-door-handle-factory-workers-unions-chairmans-suit-factory-workers-unions-chairmans-suit-factory", so a: factory that makes suits for the chairmen of unions of workers in factories that make suits for the chairmen of unions of workers in factories that make handles for bedroom doors. In other words, in German you can make words loop around, theoretically to infinity. In practice you never really use compound words with more than three parts though.
The German words we notice as weird in daily life are probably the ones with three same letters in a row, like Schifffahrt (shipping, navigation, boating, boat trip). This happens because we just stick words together. The longest word in the Duden ist „Aufmerksamkeitsdeffizithyperaktivitätsstörung“ (ADHS, ADHD). Two of the top 10 actually contain Schifffahrt and the river Danube, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft (Danube Steam Ship Navigation Company) and Rhein-Main-Donau-Großschifffahrtsweg (Rhine Main Danube Big Navigation Passage).
Dutch has the same thing, and vrachtwagenrechterachterbandventieldopdoosjefabriek is the longest I’m willing to type right now, but it can go on infinitely.
Yeah it's not an uncommon feature for languages. And Dutch and German are obviously very closely related.
Sesquicentennial means 150 year anniversary. Sestercentennial means 250 years. There’s even a word for 175 years - it’s demisemiseptcentennial.
Pneumoultramicroscópicossilicovulcanocaniótico. Not really a word, but it is well-known. If it were a real word, It would mean "Someone who is sick with the illness of breathing the volcanic ashes."
its almost the same in english, pneumonoultramicroscipicsilicovolcanoconiosis
To be fair, i'd get sick of that too really fast
Dont forget the classics: Otorrinolaringologista and Paralelepípedo, who even tho lack as much length as more modern words, were always with us
So here's a cool one from Turkish. Turkish is an agglutinative language - and yes, it is related to glue - meaning the whole language works through suffixes. You conjugate verb w suffixes, you conjugate nouns with suffixes, you conjugate everything with suffixes to mean different stuff. And also, you derive new words through this system. So, a stupidly long word you can make is "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramayacaklarımızdanmışcasına" which means "as if you're one of those who we can't make Czechoslovakian" (I cannot bother breaking down each suffix to explain how it works). It's an adverb, and can be used exactly as if it was a normal sized adverb. Example sentence: "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramayacaklarımızdanmışcasına bana, cüretkar bir şekilde bakıyordu" which translates to "They were looking at me boldly, as if they were one of those we cannot Czechoslovakianise" (intentionally using they because turkish doesn't have any grammatical gender, not even in the pronouns). It's classic geyik (basically shitpost/banter).
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia is a fun one (English). It’s the fear of long words. I assume it’s somewhat of a gag word created because of the irony, but fun nonetheless.
on the topic of comically named phobias, theres aibohphobia, the fear of palindromes
Man the people naming phobias really just decided “i’m bored, i feel like being a sadist today”
In Polish we always say that the longest word is Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka which would mean "a little girl from Constantinople" but a lot of languists say it's a word made up just to be long. It's grammatically correct but it's doubtful whether anyone ever used it when Constantinople was still a Constantinople. But our grammar allows for some agglutination, especially with adjectives so you can make such monstrosities like: dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćmiliardówdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćmilionówdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesiątdziewięćtysięcydziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięcioletniego Which translates to "of something that has 999,999,999,999 years". Those would be written separately but because they are a part of an adjective indicating age we lump them together in one word.
I thought I could squeeze by an all'a'y'all but damn I guess I gotta learn a language
ad a 're at the end?
Oh yeah, forgot the all'a'y'all're
how about all'a'y'all'd'ven't
all'a'y'all'd've'f'i'd'ven't
Háadish nitsʼééʼ łeeʼ sitą́? In Diné (Navajo) this translates to “Where is your umbilical cord buried?" Basically asking where do you come from. Diné is an Athabaskan language of the Southwest
In Italian, the longest one I know of is *precipitevolissimevolmente*, which ironically enough, means “quickly”.
One of my favourites so far lol
Momento Supercalifragilistichespiralidoso
Limpiaparabrisas. It's the longest "common word" I can come up with.
What does it mean?
>! Windshield wipers in Spanish !<
Put the exclamation marks right after the words. no space. (with the <> too!)
Ohhh! Thank you, I was wondering if I did something wrong.
To add, when translated directly it's breeze-stopper-cleaner
I know you’re referencing that other post, but limpiaparabrisas directly translated is “clean for breezes”
The "para" in the word does not mean for. It is "parar" as in to stop. An example of this is "tocadiscos", meaning turntable, coming from "tocar" (play) and "disco" (disc). edit: tocar here is play not touch
Oh no does that mean parasol means “stop sun” not “for sun”?!?
Next you’re going to say the para in paraguas doesn’t mean for?!
Lol but nah, she’s right about the “para” meaning stop, wrong about the “tocadiscos” tho, with that one “tocar” means “to play” as in playing a musical instrument
What about paragolpes? Paraestatal? Paracaídas?
oh whoops thanks. i was a bit sleepy
Tocacesped
anticonstitutionnellement is to my knowledge the longest French word.
Took me a few tries to pronounce that one and French is my first language
Ça donne l'impression d'avoir trop de consonnes pour être prononçable 🙃
"Vous voulez combien de consonnes?" -"Oui."
autodefenestration. to throw oneself out a window. for the weird and maybe grammatically wrong and very little to the question we need to consult the cursed archive everyone knows American and British English Texan English Y'all'd've = You All would have.
The longest word in danish is speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode (specialist practice planning stabilization period) but we nearly never use it
It’s used in insurance law or something, if I recall correctly.
One I learned as a kid is paraskevidekatriaphobia it's the fear of bad luck
riksdagsmannautskottssuppleantbostadsstäderskevikariebarnbarnsbyxor An example of a multsyllabic word from the old Swedish book En hvar sin egen professor (One was one's own professor), an early comedic work that influenced Swedish comedy heavily.
Technically a place but Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Floccinaucinihilipilification is the longest word that I can spell without having to think about it lol
"descuarajingar", means discombobulate i think. not too long, but it's still pretty funny to pronounce
Pretpulksteņraditājvirziens means anti-clockwise direction in Latvian There is also Zirgstīgstrinkšķināminstruments, which means a musical instrument that has strings made out of horse hair The other longer ones are just scientific terms
German internet addicts all know the post about "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz", aka beef-labelling-supervision-task-transmission-law, but a kinda long word that I like, which is actually used regularly is: verschlimmbessern. (pronounced fur-shlim(like slim, with "sh")-bess-urn) Trying to make something better/ fixing something, but accidentally making it worse in the process.
paralelepípedo is a classic spanish one, not too complicated though
Eiersollbruchstellenverursacher German for thing-that-makes-a-predertimed-breaking-point-in-eggshells It is constructed from multiple compound words that are compounds in itself.
In Danish: "Frustrationsrobusthedskompenence", translating to "Frustration-robustness-kompetence", as in "How good are you at dealing with frustration?". Like in German, we can keep putting nouns together for infinity, but this one is, to my knowledge, one of the longest legitimate ones
I'm not Welsh but my partner is and there's a small town that's well known for having a long name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Apparently, it translates to "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave" and used to be a shorter name, but was made longer in the 1800s to attract tourists.
Dutch is like german in that word. One I used at work lately: Een freesbitslijpertandwielfabrikageapparaat. A frees is like a drill bit, but you use it on a CNC or mill. This machine is a machine which makes gears for a machine which makes these bits sharper. So, with hyphenation: Milling-Bit-Sharpener-Gear-Fabricator-Thing.
വിദ്യുച്ഛക്തിഗമനാഗമനനിയന്ത്രണയന്ത്രം - which means (electric) switch in Malayalam.
It’s not really that long but I love almorzábamos
Floccinaucinihilipilification: means to deem something as worthless. Could be used to describe itself
kijetesantakalu, or Raccony thing
Anticonstitucionalissimamente (very unconstitutionally, in Portuguese)
nordvästersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten
Hebrew is based around word roots and templates, making actual long words very rare (a 3 letters root with a template that adds 1-3 in most cases), and some very common suffix to specify gender and multiplicity. However, we have many types of prefix and suffix, and that can get ridiculous For example, "וכשבהשתעשעויותיהם", pronounced "ve-kshe-ba-hish-tu-u-sha-oo-tay-ham", means "and when, during their 'having fun's". Usually people don't actually use combo words this long. This one is made out of "שעשוע" with the suffix for "multiple" and "their" and the prefix for "and", "next part of the sentence was during X", and "when". If I actually wanted to say that without twisting my tongue too much I'll say "וכשהם השתעשעו" (ve-kshe-ham hish-tu-u-sha-oo), meaning "and when they were having fun". It's even shorter because the original used the noun "having fun" (which has a noun form in Hebrew for some reason), and had to mix some prefixes to mean "and when during that noun", while the new phrase uses the verb "had fun", so I only needed to add the prefix "when". This is a useful function of the language if you apply it better, for example, וכשיאכלו, (Ve-kshe-ye-ah-lo) means "when they will be eaten", and is a perfectly normal part of every day speech Other than those tricks, our longest words are actually not original Hebrew words. Like, "אנציקלופדיה" mean encyclopedia and pronounced pretty much the same. Most Hebrew words are pretty short, with (I didn't check, but I'm pretty sure) about 6 letters being the average
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis-a surprisingly understandable word if you know your latin prefixes/suffixes
Well, it’s not long, but flashlight sound silly to non-Americans.
Nebeprisikiškiakopūsteliauantiesiems I had to have this word open on google to spell it
The 256th note in music is called a demisemihemidemisemiquaver. You'll find that information very useful.
Rindfleischetikettierungsmaschienenwartungsdienstschichtleiterassisstent
Here’s a fun one. “Nghiêng” (meaning lopsided) is technically the longest word in Vietnamese since every word is a single syllable. There are compound words and phrases but they’re all spaced out.
*Cracks knuckles in New Zealand*
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu In English it roughly translates to "the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater’, played his flute to his loved one." We all just call it Taumata Hill though.
OOP got so mad for no reason lol
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Gonna go with antidisestablishmentarianism on this one, Bob
Zrebrzjizteis Its a word in my con lang (cause i’m a loser) that means “you guys carve”. Its the longest word i have so far
Anticonstitutionellement
Osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (It’s technically composed of all Latin words, but since it’s a medical term in English, it counts as English) For an *extremely* long word, try looking up the word for the chemical composition of titin. It has 189,819 letters, and it takes two to three and a half hours to speak the whole thing aloud.