Some of us are lovers of the long word. We thrill at the sight and sound of the odd, the overblown, and the obscure. Like birdwatchers or butterfly collectors who traverse mountains, penetrate jungles, or trudge through swamps for a glimpse of some rare species, we slog through the daily mire of language hoping to lay eyes on a lexicographic dinosaur or linguistic Loch Ness monster. To us, the short, straightforward words we have been force-fed and made to regurgitate are like so many indistinguishable ants in an endless and tiresome trail of sentences.
If you are a secret or not-so-secret lover of the long word, then perhaps you already know that the long word for long words is sesquipedalian (SES-kwi-pi-DAY-lee-in). It comes from the Roman poet Horace’s phrase sesquipedalia verba, which means literally “words a foot and a half long.” Sesquipedalian may also refer to anything a foot and a half long, such as a sesquipedalian hot dog.
If you enjoy munching on a foot-and-a-half-long word from time to time, here is a smorgasbord of sesquipedalian monsters that should provide enough verbal nutrition to last you for months. I invite you to try them out for size.
From the Fancy Words for Simple Ideas Department come muliebriety (MYOO-lee-uh-BRY-i-tee), which means femininity, womanhood; obnubilation (ahb-N(Y)OO-bi-LAY-shin), clouding over, obscuring; sarculation (SAHR-kyuu-LAY-shin), weeding with a hoe; immorigerous (IM-uh-RIJ-uh-rus), rude, uncivil, disobedient; and vivisepulture (VIV-i-SEP-ul-chur), the act of burying someone alive. One of my favorites in this foot-and-a-half-long category is chryselephantine (KRIS-el-uh-FAN-tin or -teen), which means made of gold and ivory.
From the Utterly Outrageous Department come bruxomania (BRUHK-suh-MAY-nee-uh), the habit of grinding the teeth, especially in sleep or under stress; philopatridomania (FIL-uh-PA-tridoh-MAY-nee-uh), a fanatic case of homesickness; azygophrenia (uh-ZY-guh-FREE-nee-uh), the psychoneurosis of single life; uxorodespotism (uk-SOR-oh-DES-puh-tiz-’m), wifely tyranny; borborygmus (BOR-buh-RIG-mus), the sound of gas passing through the intestines, a gurgling in your gut; cacophonophilist (KAK-uhfuh-NAHF-uh-list), a lover of harsh sounds; sacerdotophrenia (SASur-DOH-tuh-FREE-nee-uh), clerical stage fright, fear of the pulpit, the mere thought of which is enough to make any preacher horripilate (hah- or haw-RIP-i-LAYT), get goosebumps; and finally, if you are mathematically challenged you can chew on the redoubtable word zenzizenzizenzic (ZEN-zi-ZEN-zi-ZEN-zik), which means the eighth power of a number.
Perhaps by now you’re wondering just how long can you get? Well, pretty doggone long. I’m not going to give you what some say is the longest word in the language—it’s an esoteric chemical term that has 1,185 letters and would take almost a minute to pronounce. I will leave you, however, with three of the longest pronounceable words around.
The rare and fascinating word bathysiderodromophobia (BATH-ee-SID-ur-oh-DROH-muh-FOH-bee-uh) is formed from the Greek bathy, meaning “deep,” sidero, meaning “iron,” dromo, meaning “a course or track,” and phobia, which means “fear.” By derivation, bathysiderodromophobia means “fear of a deep iron course or track”; hence, fear of subways or underground trains.
The risible word floccinaucinihilipilification (FLAHK-si-NAW-si-NY-hil-i-PIL-i-fi-KAY-shin), which has twenty-nine letters, means the act of categorizing something as trivial or worthless. In his delightful book Crazy English (1989), Richard Lederer notes that floccinaucinihilipilification “dates back to 1741 and is the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary.”
Weighing in at thirty letters is the heavyweight word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian (HIP-uh-PAH-toh-MAHN-stroh-SES-kwi-pi-DAY-lee-in), which, appropriately enough, means pertaining to an extremely long word.
Writing down wonderfully worthless words like bathysiderodromophobia, floccinaucinihilipilification, and hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian can give you a bad case of graphospasm (GRAF-uh-SPAZ-’m), which is the technical term for writer’s cramp.
I hope all those big words haven’t knocked the wind out of you, but if they have, here’s a breath of fresh air: All you have to do is learn ten more keywords and you will have completed the Verbal Advantage program and earned an honorary degree in grandiloquence. So rouse yourself now from your hebetude and get ready for the final leg of Level 10.
