What is the longest one-syllable word?

Juggernaut314

There are a few, from http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/onesyllable What is the longest one-syllable English word? "The one most commonly cited is screeched (nine letters). However, one ought to mention also scratched, scrounged, scrunched, stretched, and the plural nouns straights and strengths (all with nine letters). The complete Oxford English Dictionary also indicates the existence of scraughed, scrinched, scritched, scrooched, sprainged, spreathed, throughed, and thrutched. The OED also cites a single instance of the ten-letter word scraunched, from the 1620 English translation of Don Quixote. " So depending on what you count as a word, it may be scraunched at ten letters, or any of the 9 letter words listed above. Feb 09 10, 9:26 AM

star_gazer

This is a debatable question. The original French name for smurf is schtroumpf, and is used as an all-purpose noun and verb by Smurfs and in imitation of them. The form schtroumpfed is used in Alistair McEwen's English translation of an essay by Umberto Eco: "Let us suppose that an English speaker of average culture hears a Schtroumpf poet reciting I schtroumpfed lonely as a schtroumpf." However, this is intended to represent the Schtroumpf language rather than English. That one syllable word is twelve letters. The eleven-letter word broughammed (created from brougham by analogy with bussed, biked, carted etc.), while readily pronounceable as one syllable in all dialects ("broomed", IPA: /bɹu¢°md/), is yet to appear in a print dictionary. See: "ough" words. The word might also be spelled broughamed, with ten letters. Squirrelled is the spelling in British English of a word usually spelled in American English as squirreled (see -led and -lled spellings) . While in Received Pronunciation the word has two syllables (IPA: /ˈskwɪɹəɫd/), it is often pronounced /skwɝɫd/ (rhymes with world) in North American English [1]. Of those who use the one-syllable pronunciation, some may use the eleven-letter spelling; for the rest, it is a ten-letter monosyllable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_English_words_with_one_syllable Feb 09 10, 12:51 PM

author

Debatable, yes. Still, this man votes for scraunched. Quote: At ten letters long, this pseudo-onomatopoeic synonym for crunched is the longest monosyllabic word in the English language. All six of its closest rivals — scratched, screeched, scrounged, squelched, straights, and strengths — curiously also begin with the letter S, but each of them falls short of the champion of monosyllabry’s deliciously burnished mouthfeel. Just say it a few times and you’ll understand. How can so many letters voiced in a single beat be blended any more smoothly? http://www.myfavoriteword.com/2008/01/02/scraunched/ Feb 10 10, 8:37 PM