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What is the longest adjective?

Question #33287. Asked by chui.
Last updated May 18 2021.

Friar Tuck
Answer has 6 votes
Currently Best Answer
Friar Tuck

Answer has 6 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
In Thomas Love Peacock's satirical novel Headlong Hall (1816) there appear two high-flown nonce words (one-off coinages) which describe the human body by stringing together adjectives describing its various tissues. The first is based on Greek words, and the second on the Latin equivalents; they are osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous (44 letters) and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51 letters), which translate roughly as 'of bone, flesh, blood, organs, gristle, nerve, and marrow'.

Some editions of the Guinness Book of Records mention praetertranssubstantiationalistically (37 letters), used in Mark McShane's Untimely Ripped (1963), and aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic (52 letters), attributed to Dr Edward Strother (1675-1737).
link http://www.english-for-students.com/Longest-Words.html

Response last updated by CmdrK on May 18 2021.
May 08 2003, 10:36 PM
hummerh3
Answer has 4 votes
hummerh3
20 year member
78 replies

Answer has 4 votes.
I'll take a guess:
propseudocontraneoantidisestablishmentarianalistic. That's 50 letters.

Mar 18 2004, 6:42 PM
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