For the purposes of this article, any word which has appeared in a recognised general English dictionary published in the 20th century or later is considered a candidate. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States For interest, some archaic words, non-standard words and proper names are also included.
The treatment of words of foreign origin can be problematic. The entire history of English involves influence and loanwords from other languages, and this process continues today (see Foreign language influences in English). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation While many words enter English as slang not all do Some words are adopted from other languages some are mixtures of existing words (portmanteau words and some are new coinages made of roots However, there is a grey area between foreign words and words accepted as English. The Oxford English Dictionary calls such words "resident aliens". The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English Generally, a word of foreign origin is legitimate here if it may be encountered in an English text without translation.
Combinations of letters
Many vowels
It is important to note the difference between vowel letters and vowel sounds. A string of letters may represent a single vowel sound (like ea in head); conversely, a single letter may represent multiple vowels, or a diphthong (such as boy, with one diphthong, or Peoria, which has multiple diphthongs). In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with This section deals with words that have many vowel letters, which may, however, represent a smaller number of vowel sounds. Unless otherwise specified, "vowels" here refers to the regular vowels, a, e, i, o, u.
Euouae (a type of cadence in mediæval music) contains six vowel letters in a row. Euouae is a Mnemonic which was used in Medieval Music to denote the sequence of tones in the "s' e' c' u' l' o' r' u' In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract It is a pseudo-word, however, formed from the vowels of the last six syllables of the "Gloria Patri" doxology: "seculorum. A doxology (from the Greek doxa, glory + Logos, word or speaking is a short Hymn of praise to God in various Christian Amen". It is also often spelt evovae. [1]
There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing. Queue areas are places in which people in line ( First-come first-served) wait for goods or services More unusual examples are cooeeing (making a "cooee" sound), miaoued or miaouing (from miaou, to make a sound like a cat; more commonly miaow or meow). Another candidate is zoaeae, a plural of zoaea. Zoaea, more commonly spelt zoea, is a larval stage in crustacean development. Those who write using the ligature "æ" may consider the singular to have only three vowels (zoæa). Capitalised words include Rousseauian (pertaining to the philosopher Rousseau), Aeaea or Aiaia (a location in Greek mythology) and the related adjectives Aeaean/Aiaian, and Iouea, a genus of sea sponges. Aeaea (sometimes Aiaia) was a possibly mythological island said to be the home of the sorceress Circe. Iouea is a genus of Cretaceous Fossil sponges. It is also the shortest word with all five vowels in it
The list of common words with four vowels in a row is also fairly short, and includes aqueous, Hawaiian, obsequious, onomatopoeia, pharmacopoeia, queue, plateaued, and sequoia, amongst a few others. Onomatopoeia (also spelled onomatopœia, from Greek: ονοματοποιΐα is a Word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing Pharmacopoeia (literally the art of the drug compounder in its modern technical sense is a book containing directions for the identification of samples and the preparation of compound Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living Species of the Genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly
Examples of words consisting entirely of vowels, including proper names and some words already mentioned, are:
- a (the indefinite article)
- aa (a geological term for a type of lava)
- ae (a Scots adjective form of "one")
- Aeaea or Aiaia (a location in Greek mythology)
- aeaeae (magic)
- ai (the three-toed sloth)
- aia (a Brazilian bird)
- Aiea (a town in Hawaii)
- au (French for "to" or "with", encountered in English in compounds such as au pair and au fait)
- euouae (a type of cadence in mediaeval music)
- euoi (a Greek exclamation of joy)
- eau (French for "water", encountered in English in compounds such as eau de cologne)
- Eiao (one of the Marquesas Islands)
- I (first person pronoun)
- Iao (a Polynesian god)
- I'i (a figure in Polynesian mythology) – contains a consonant, but not one written with a letter generally recognized as a consonant in English. Scots ( The Scots leid) refers to Anglic varieties derived from early northern Middle English spoken in parts of Scotland and Northern Aeaea (sometimes Aiaia) was a possibly mythological island said to be the home of the sorceress Circe. The maned three-toed sloth, also known as the ai, Bradypus torquatus, is a species of three-toed South American Sloth. See also AIA (disambiguation Aia (pronounced eye-a is a small village situated on the slopes of Mount Pagoeta in the Basque Province of Guipúzcoa Aiea (ʔaiea is a Census-designated place (CDP located in Honolulu County, Hawai{{okina}}i. An au pair (plural au pairs) is a foreign-national domestic assistant working for and living as part of a host Family. SpecialShortpages.-- Eiao is the largest of the extreme northwestern Marquesas Islands. In the traditions of Samoa, Sava and his sister I'i, were the children of Lefatu (the rock and Le'ele'ele (the earth Encoding and displaying the Polynesian glottal Old conventions In plain ASCII the glottal is sometimes represented by the apostrophe character ('
- Io (a figure in Greek mythology, also a moon of Jupiter)
- Iouea (a genus of sea sponges)
- O (interjection)
- oi (an impolite exclamation used to gain someone's attention)
- oo (a Hawaiian bird). In Greek mythology, Io (ˈaɪoʊ or /ˈiːoʊ/ World Book «EYE oh», in Ancient Greek Ἰώ) was a priestess of Hera in Argos Iouea is a genus of Cretaceous Fossil sponges. It is also the shortest word with all five vowels in it
Exclamations such as oooo, aaaa and eeee are not normally considered legitimate words.
Other words that have a high proportion of vowels, including some proper names, are as follows.
- 6 letters, 1 consonant:
- 7 letters, 1 consonant:
- ouabaio (an African tree that yields the poison ouabain)
- 8 letters, 2 consonants:
- aboideau or aboiteau (a sluice gate)
- Beaulieu (a village in Hampshire, England)
- epopoeia (variant of epopee, an epic poem)
- quiaquia (a type of fish)
- 9 letters, 2 consonants:
- 11 letters, 3 consonants:
- Aecidiaceae (a plant family)
- Ouagadougou (capital of Burkina Faso)
- Paeoniaceae (a plant family)
- 12 letters, 3 consonants:
- Saurauiaceae (a plant family)
Containing all the vowels
The word Iouea, a genus of sea sponges, contains all five regular vowels and no other letters. For the mythological figure see Euboea (mythology Euboea ( Modern Greek, Εύβοια - Évia &mdash Ouabain ('waben wa'bein (through French from Somali 'waabaayo' an arrow poison is the familiar name of g-strophanthin a poisonous Cardiac glycoside. The Family Aizoaceae or Ficoidaceae (fig-marigold family or ice plant family is a taxon of Dicotyledonous Flowering plants containing 135 genera and Asphodelaceae is the Botanical name of a family of Flowering plants. Ouagadougou (ˌwɑgəˈduːguː Mossi wɑgədəgə is the Capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative For the ancient Balkan region and tribe see Paionia. The peony or paeony ( Paeonia) is the only genus in the Iouea is a genus of Cretaceous Fossil sponges. It is also the shortest word with all five vowels in it Other short words containing all the regular vowels are eunoia at six letters, followed by sequoia (and a variety of rarer words such as Aeonium, eulogia, miaoued) at seven. Eunoia is the shortest English word containing all five main Vowel graphemes Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living Species of the Genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly Aeonium is a Genus of about 35 species of Succulent, subtropical Plants of the family Crassulaceae. The shortest words with all six vowels (including y) are oxygeusia (an abnormally acute sense of taste), Oxyuridae (a family of parasitic nematodes), Oxyurinae (a sub-family of ducks), and aeriously (meaning "airily"; see below), with nine letters. Oxyurinae is a Subfamily of the Duck, Goose and Swan family of Birds Anatidae. Oxyuriases (plural of oxyuriasis) has ten letters; Oxyuroidea (an order of nematodes; see below) has ten letters, including a second o. Enterobiasis is the medical condition of being infected with Pinworms ( Enterobius vermicularis)
There are many words that feature all five regular vowels occurring only once in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious and facetious. Two of the shortest, at eight letters, are caesious and anemious (OED); and aerious (OED) has only seven letters. Some others are abstentious, acheilous, arsenious, arterious, tragedious, fracedinous, and Gadsprecious (all in OED). Considering y as a vowel, the suffix -ly can be added to a number of these words; thus the shortest word containing six unique vowels in alphabetical order is aeriously, with nine letters (OED); the much more common facetiously has eleven letters. In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word
Subcontinental and uncomplimentary are common words having the five vowels once only in reverse order. One of the shortest such words, at eight letters, is Muroidea, a superfamily of rodents. Muroidea is a large Superfamily of Rodents It includes Hamsters Gerbils true mice and Rats and many other relatives
Dasyuroidea (a superfamily of marsupials; in OED) has the full set of six vowels including y once only in reverse order, but with an extra a preceding. Oxyuroidea (in OED; ten letters) has o preceding the sequence of vowels in reverse order, and it may be the shortest with such a sequence.
No vowels but "y"
Rhythms is the longest common word containing neither a, e, i, o or u. In non-rhotic English dialects, such as Received Pronunciation, every Lexical word must contain at least one spoken vowel in its pronunciation Gypsyfy, gypsyry, symphysy, nymphly and nymphfly are longer but rarer. The archaic word twyndyllyngs has been cited as the longest of all. Syzygy, which contains three y's, is still in common usage.
Many consonants
The longest word with only one vowel is strengths (9 letters), packing six consonant sounds into a single syllable. The words psychorhythms (13), rhythmlessly (12) and polyrhythms (11) are longer, but each clearly uses the letter y as a vowel. There are also a variety of onomatopoeic words, such as the nine-letter tsktsking (making a "tsktsk" sound), which appears in Chambers Dictionary (in which case tsktsks, seven letters and no vowels, should also be possible). Eight-letter words with just one vowel are also fairly rare—as well as strength itself, some examples are schmaltz, schnapps and twelfths.
Candidates for words with seven consonants in a row are Twelfthstreet (normally two words but sometimes written as one, as in a song title; Eighthstreet is feasible by analogy), and Hirschsprung, as in Hirschsprung's disease (though this is after a Danish surname). Hirschsprung's disease, or congenital aganglionic megacolon, involves an enlargement of the colon, caused by Bowel obstruction resulting
The place-name Knightsbridge has six consonants in a row (with four consonant sounds), as do the compound words catchphrase, latchstring, sightscreen, watchspring and watchstrap, and the somewhat more obscure borschts (plural of borscht, a type of soup from Eastern Europe), the German-derived festschrift (a collection of writings honouring a noted academic), Eschscholzia (a plant genus) and bergschrund (a glacier crevasse). Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of Central London. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal A catch phrase (or catchphrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance BORSCHT is an Acronym for '''B'''attery feed '''O'''vervoltage protection '''R'''inging '''S'''upervision '''C'''odec The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. In Academia, a Festschrift (/ˈfɛstˌʃrɪft/ Plural, Festschriften, /ˈfɛstˌʃrɪf Eschscholzia is a Genus of 12 flowering plants in the Papaveraceae ( Poppy) family A bergschrund is a Crevasse that forms where the moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice above
Apart from words already mentioned (and their plurals), long words with just two, three, and four vowels include Christchurch, spendthrifts, stretchmarks (2 vowels, 12 letters); farthingsworths, shillingsworths, strengthfulness (3, 15); and handcraftsmanship, splanchnemphraxis (4, 17).
Alternating vowels and consonants
The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels, as do the slightly more prosaic medical terms hepatoperitonitis and mesobilirubinogen (both 17 letters). Honorificabilitudinitatibus is a word used by Costard in act five scene one of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. The longest such words that are reasonably well known may be overimaginative, parasitological and verisimilitudes (all 15 letters). As a country, United Arab Emirates is unsurpassed for length in its vowel/consonant alternation.
The longest alternating words beginning with a vowel are possibly the 16-letter adenolipomatosis (a glandular condition), aluminosilicates (a class of chemical compounds containing aluminium and silicon) and anatomicomedical (relating to anatomy and medicine).
Theopneustia (an obscure word for Christian divine inspiration) alternates pairs of vowels and consonants.
Doubled, tripled and quadrupled letters
Esssse, a spelling used for the word ash in a 14th-century text, has four of the same letter in sequence and is cited in the second edition of the OED. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English [2] A number of English words have three of the same letter in sequence, but almost all are constructions involving a suffix, and could arguably be hyphenated or, in some cases, written as two words. They include brasssmith, goddessship, headmistressship, wallless (lacking walls), and bulllike (like a bull). The OED contains the word frillless. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English In some fabrication plants, scrap is called offfall, though the hyphen is nearly universal. This suggests that similar material could be described as offfalllike.
Other candidates are the archaic agreeeth (third person singular present tense of the verb to agree), Cavaticovelia aaa (a Hawaiian water bug), and tweeer (comparative adjective of the qualifier twee meaning infantilely kitsch), though comparison to freer and seer argues against the third e. The use of tree as a transitive verb meaning "to drive up a tree" makes the dog the tree-er and the cat the tree-ee. There are also many possessives ending in -ss's (e. g. actress's). The term cryptozoology means the study of hidden animals and oology is the study of eggs; this implies that the study of hidden eggs could be described as cryptooology, where each o possesses a separate sound. Cryptozoology (from Greek κρυπτός kruptos, "hidden" + Zoology; literally "study of hidden animals" is the study of and search Oology, or oölogy is the branch of Zoology that deals with the study of eggs especially Birds eggs
Place-names include Rossshire and Invernessshire, both in Scotland, UK (though both of these counties are usually hyphenated in official documentation), and Kaaawa in Hawaiʻi (although this is a common misspelling of Kaʻaʻawa in Hawaiian, the ʻokina being a glottal stop). Ross-shire, or the County of Ross, ( Siorrachd Rois in Scottish Gaelic) is a former county of Scotland. Inverness-shire also known as the county of Inverness or Siorrachd Inbhir Nis in Gaelic, was a general purpose county of Scotland, The Hawaiian language (Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawai'i, the largest island in the tropical This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. The famous Welsh placename Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch contains the letter l four times in a row, but the llll is in fact the single Welsh digraph ll twice, rather than four ls; the name was in fact concocted in the 1860s as a publicity stunt. placenames of Wales derive in most cases from the Welsh language, but have in many cases also been influenced by English. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (short form Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) also spelled Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll and commonly known as Llanfair A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond
Constructions such as zzzzzz (sound of a person snoring, representing sleep), shhhhhh (quiet!), and aaaaargh (cry of distress) are not normally recognised as legitimate words.
Bookkeeper has three consecutive doubled letters (subbookkeeper, which has four, seems to have been invented by word puzzlists). Bookkeeping (also book-keeping or book keeping) is the recording of all Financial transactions undertaken by an individual or Organization (including Many words have two consecutive doubled letters; examples are roommate, balloon, coffee, woolly, steellike and succeed. The word possessionlessness has four doubled letters; examples of common words with three are addressee, committee and keenness.
The letters a, j, q, x and y appear doubled only in words imported from other languages or proper names (e. g. aardvark, hajj, Zaqqum, Exxon, Hayyim). The Aardvark ( Orycteropus afer) ("Digging foot" is a medium-sized burrowing nocturnal Mammal native to Africa. The Hajj (حج is a pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah It is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world Zaqqum (زقوم is a tree that Muslims believe grows in Jahannam ( Hell) Exxon is a brand of fuel sold by ExxonMobil. History Exxon formally replaced the Esso, Enco, Chayyim (חַיִּים ḥayyīm) also transcribed as Chaim, Hayim, or Haim or Hayyim, is a name of Hebrew/Jewish origin its first Doubled h, i, k, u, v and w are also rare in English, with hh and ww occurring only in compounds. Examples include:
- h: bathhouse, beachhead, fishhook, hitchhiker, roughhouse, withhold
- i: genii, radii, skiing, taxiing
- k: bookkeeper, bookkeeping, chukka, dekko, tikka, trekked, trekker, trekking
- u: continuum, duumvir, residuum, vacuum
- v: bevvy, bivvy, civvies, chivvy, divvy, flivver, navvy, revved, revving, skivvy, savvy
- w: glowworm, meadowwort, strawworm
Many repeated letters
The following table lists words that repeat the given letter many times. The number of repetitions is shown in brackets. If the word with the most repetitions is dubious (for example, it is hyphenated, arguably should be hyphenated, is a proper name, or seems artificial) then further candidates with fewer repetitions are offered. Where there are many candidate words with the same number of repetitions only the shortest or commonest (judged subjectively) is listed.
| a | taramasalata (6) – a fish roe paste Galatasaray (5) – a Turkish football team |
|---|---|
| b | bibble-babble (6) – babble flibbertigibbet (4) – a silly woman |
| c | pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (6) – a famously long word for a respiratory disease micrococcic (5) – relating to micrococcus, a type of bacterium sacrococcygeal (4) – pertaining to both the sacrum and the coccyx |
| d | dodecahemidodecahedron (5) – a type of polyhedron (solid geometrical figure) |
| e | ethylenediaminetetraacetate (7) – a chemical compound, used as a drug degenerescence (6) – decay beekeeper (5) |
| f | riffraff (4) – undesirable people |
| g | "Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg" (15) – the name of a lake in Massachusetts Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (7) – a famously long Welsh placename hugger-muggering (5) – acting secretly giggling (4) – laughing in a silly manner |
| h | High-Churchmanship (5) – the state of being a High-Churchman, that is, supporting the High Church (a faction of the Anglican church) Rhamphorhynchus (4) – a genus of pterosaur or orchid |
| i | floccinaucinihilipilification (9) – a famously long word meaning "the action of estimating as worthless" indivisibilities (7) – a supposed plural of indivisibility indivisibility (6) – the state of being indivisible |
| j | jejunojejunostomy (4) – a surgical procedure carried out on the intestine |
| k | knickknack (4) – a small article of little value |
| l | Llullaillaco (6) – a mountain in the Andes skillfully (4) – with skill |
| m | mammogram (4) – a breast X-ray |
| n | nonannouncement (6) – absence of an announcement inconveniencing (5) – causing difficulty for |
| o | pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (9) – a famously long word for a respiratory disease Chrononhotonthologos (7) – the name of a play by English writer Henry Carey odontonosology (6) – dentistry |
| p | whippersnapper (4) – a young, impertinent person |
| q | Albuquerque (2) – a city in New Mexico quinquennium (2) – a period of five years riqq (2) – a type of Egyptian tambourine |
| r | strawberry-raspberry (6) – a Japanese plant refrigerator (4) – an appliance for keeping food cool |
| s | possessionlessness (8) – the state of being without possessions senselessness (6) – lack of sense |
| t | tittle-tattle (6) – gossip anticonstitutionalist (5) – someone who opposes a constitution |
| u | humuhumunukunukuapuaʻa (9) – a Hawaiian fish unscrupulous (4) – lacking morals |
| v | ovoviviparous (3) – producing eggs that hatch within the body |
| w | wow-wow (4) – a type of gibbon powwow (3) – a Native American gathering swallowwort (3) – any of several plants |
| x | hexahydroxycyclohexane (3) – a chemical compound, part of the vitamin B complex executrix (2) – a female executor |
| y | polysyndactyly (4) – webbing of the hands or feet syzygy (3) – a kind of astronomical coordination or alignment |
| z | zenzizenzizenzic (6) – the eighth power or exponent of a number razzmatazz (4) – showy spectacle |
Ignoring the 20-letter play title Chrononhotonthologos, the longest words containing only one of the five regular vowels (overlooking y) may be the 17-letter proctocolonoscopy and synchrocyclotrons. For the song by Eggstone, see Vive La Différence!. Taramosalata ( Greek:ταραμοσαλάτα or Taramas is a Greek and Turkish Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis ( also spelled -koniosis) is according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a factitious Micrococcus (mi’ krō kŏk’ Əs is a Genus of Bacteria in the Micrococcaceae family. The sacrum is a large triangular bone at the base of the spine and at the upper and back part of the Pelvic cavity, where it is inserted like a wedge between The coccyx (pronounced kok -siks (Latin os coccygis) commonly referred to as the tailbone, is the final segment of the human vertebral column In Geometry, the great dodecahemidodecahedron is a nonconvex Uniform polyhedron, indexed as U70 EDTA is a widely used abbreviation for the Chemical compound ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (and many other names see table Lake Chaubunagungamaug (tʃəˌbʌnəˈɡʌŋɡəmɑːɡ also known as " Webster Lake " is a Lake in the town of Webster Massachusetts Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (short form Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) also spelled Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll and commonly known as Llanfair " High Church " relates to Ecclesiology and Liturgy in Anglican theology and practice A genus (plural genera from Γένος Latin genus "descent family type gender" is a low-level Taxonomic For other meanings see Pterodactyl (disambiguation. Pterosaurs (ˈtɛrəsɔr from the Greek πτερόσαυρος pterosauros Floccinaucinihilipilification ( American English see below for more pronunciation possibilities (or variously flocci' p' aucinihilipilification, as described Llullaillaco is a Stratovolcano at the border of Argentina ( Salta Province) and Chile. Mammography is the process of using low-dose X-rays (usually around 0 Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis ( also spelled -koniosis) is according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a factitious Chrononhotonthologos is a satirical play by the English poet and songwriter Henry Carey from 1734. The riq ( رق) (also spelled riqq or rik) is a type of Tambourine used as a traditional instrument in A refrigerator (often called a " fridge " for short is a cooling appliance comprising a thermally insulated compartment and a Heat pump - humuhumunukunukuāpuaa redirects here For the Rhinecanthus aculeatus of the same name see Lagoon triggerfish. In broadest terms Syzygy (ˈsɪzɪʤi is a kind of unity especially through coordination or alignment most commonly used in the Astronomical and/or Astrological The zenzizenzizenzic of a number is its eighth power. This term was suggested by Robert Recorde, a 16th century Welsh writer of popular Mathematics Chrononhotonthologos is a satirical play by the English poet and songwriter Henry Carey from 1734. Long words with only one of the six vowels including y are the 15-letter defencelessness and respectlessness.
A candidate for longest word containing only one type of consonant is the 10-letter coucicouci, a word apparently included in at least one version of Roget's Thesaurus to mean "imperfect", but otherwise almost unknown. 9-letter words are allolalia (a speech disturbance) and Coccaceae (an obsolete name for a family of bacteria).
Words containing the same sequence of letters multiple times are often relatively uninteresting, being formed by reduplication (e. Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated g. higgledy-piggledy, namby-pamby), repetition of the same word or essentially the same word (countercountermeasure, gastrogastrostomy, benzeneazobenzene), or compounding (handstands, foreshores, nightlight). Some other examples, with the repeated sequence in brackets followed by the number of repetitions, include: nationalisation (ation, 2), undergrounder (under, 2), patinating (atin, 2), assesses (sses, 2), Mississippi (issi, 2), hotshots (hots, 2), Teteté (te, 3), expressionlessness (ess, 3), phosphophorin (pho, 3), Pitjantjatjara (tja, 3), tintinnabulating (tin, 3), nonconfrontation (on, 4), trans-Panamanian (an, 4). Mississippi ( is a state located in the Deep South of the United States Teteté is an extinct Tucanoan language that was spoken in Ecuador close to the Ecuador-Colombia border Pitjantjatjara ˈpɪcaɲcacaɾa is the name of both an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert and their language (for which see Pitjantjatjara
Long words with just two, three, four, etc. distinct letters include booboo, deeded, muumuu, Teteté (2 distinct letters, 6 letters in total); assesses, referrer (3, 8); senselessness (4, 13); defenselessness (6, 15); disinterestedness (7, 17); and institutionalisation (8, 20). Teteté is an extinct Tucanoan language that was spoken in Ecuador close to the Ecuador-Colombia border
Isograms
Words in which no letter is used more than once are called isograms (though its use in this sense is jargon restricted to those who enjoy recreational linguistics, and is not commonly found in dictionaries). Isogram is also another name for a Contour line An isogram (also known as a "nonpattern word" is a logological term for For Wikipedia jargon see WikipediaGlossary. For hacker slang see Jargon File. Uncopyrightable, with fifteen letters, is the longest common isogram in English (some also allow uncopyrightables). Misconjugatedly and dermatoglyphics share the distinction but are less well-known; subdermatoglyphic is two letters longer but even more obscure — it has only one report of alleged live use (an article in Annals of Dermatology), and supposedly means "of or pertaining to the patterns on the lower skin layers. The skin is the outer covering of living tissue of an animal (or plant "
The words blepharoconjunctivitis and pneumoventriculography (as well as several others) contain 16 of the 26 letters of the alphabet, though they are not isograms as some letters are repeated.
Sometimes isograms are defined as words in which each letter appears the same number of times, not necessarily just once. Long examples in which each letter appears twice are scintillescent (an obscure word for sparkling or twinkling), Cicadellidae (a family of insects), Gradgrindian (in the manner of Gradgrind, a character in Dickens' novel Hard Times noted for his soulless devotion to facts and statistics), happenchance (chance circumstance), and trisectrices (plural of trisectrix, a type of geometrical curve). Leafhopper is a common name applied to any species from the family Cicadellidae. Hard Times- For These Times is a Novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854 In Geometry, a trisectrix is a curve which can be used to trisect an arbitrary angle Long isograms in which each letter appears three times include sestettes (plural of sestette, a variant of sestet or sextet), and the fairly uninteresting cha-cha-cha (a type of dance music). A sestet is the name given to the second division of a Sonnet, which must consist of an octave, of eight lines succeeded by a sestet of six lines A sextet is a formation containing exactly six members It is commonly associated with vocal or musical instrument groups but can be applied to any situation where six similar or related The words senescence, intestines and arraigning have four distinct letters, each of which appears an even number of times. The word unprosperousness has seven such letters.
Unusual word endings
Dreamt and its derivatives are the only common English words that end in mt. (Though many Americans prefer using dreamed. ) Derivatives include undreamt (typically used only in the phrase "undreamt of"), daydreamt, and the rarer outdreamt and redreamt. Other -mt words include the Scots word fremt (usually fremd or fremmit[3]) meaning "foreign" or "estranged" (cf. Scots ( The Scots leid) refers to Anglic varieties derived from early northern Middle English spoken in parts of Scotland and Northern the German "fremd", same meaning) and, familiar but of foreign origin, Klimt, the Austrian painter. Gustav Klimt (July 14 1862 – February 6 1918 was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau
Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are the only ones. Anger is an emotional state that may range from minor irritation to intense rage Hunger is a feeling experienced usually followed by a desire to Eat. There are, however, a number of rare and obsolete words; see -gry for a further discussion.
Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in English that end -shion (though many words end in this sound). These are cushion and fashion (derivatives include pincushion, refashion and misfashion). A cushion (from Old French coisson, coussin; from Latin culcita, a quilt is a soft bag of some ornamental material stuffed with Fashion refers to styles of dress (but can also include cuisine literature art architecture and general comportment that are popular in a culture at any given time
-mt and -gry are possibly the best-known unusual word endings, but there are many others exhibited by only one or two everyday words. Some examples, excluding derivative words, are -ln (kiln, Lincoln),-tl (axolotl, Quetzalcoatl, rotl, Ueueteotl), -bt (doubt, debt), -igy (effigy, prodigy), -nen (linen), and cay (decay, Biscay).
There are very few common English words ending in -u, and many are assimilated from other languages. Examples include, but are not limited to: adieu, beau, bureau, caribou, emu, flu, gnu, guru, impromptu, menu, milieu, ormolu, plateau, portmanteau, thou, tofu, tutu, and, of course, you. All of these words, excepting emu, flu, gnu, guru, thou, tofu, and you, are derived from French. In addition, there are the Greek letters mu, nu, and tau, and the proper nouns Urdu, Hindu and Katmandu.
There are similarly few words ending in -v. Examples found in English dictionaries, including some words of foreign origin, are chav, lev, shiv, Slav, Yugoslav, spiv and tav. Chav (ʧæv or Charv/Charva (ʧɑːv The lev (лев plural bg лева левове / ''leva levove'' is the Currency of Bulgaria. This article is about the knife-like weapon For the location in Magic The Gathering, see Dominaria. Yugoslavs ( Bosnian: Jugosloveni/Jugoslaveni; Macedonian and Serbian: Југословени Jugosloveni; Croatian Spiv is a British word for a particular kind of petty criminal who deals in stolen goods or fraudulent sales especially a well-dressed man offering goods at bargain prices Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Tav Abbreviations and acronyms that have to a greater or lesser extent attained the status of words include derv (diesel fuel), guv (British informal term of respectful address, from governor), lav (lavatory), luv (love), perv (pervert), rev (as of an engine, from revolution), sov (British, old-fashioned, for sovereign, the coin). There are also numerous place-names and personal names, especially of Russian or Eastern European origin, such as Kiev, Chekhov, Molotov, Prokofiev. Kiev, also known as Kyiv ( Ukrainian:, Kyiv, ˈkɪjiw Russian:, Kiyev; see also Cities' alternative names) is the Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Серге́й Серге́евич Проко́фьев Sergéj Sergéjevič Prokófjev) ( - 5 March 1953 was a Russian composer who
Unusual word beginnings
Words beginning with a double letter are generally very rare. The most common combination is probably oo- (oodles, oolong, oomph, oops, ooze, and a number of less familiar examples, mostly technical words incorporating the prefix oo-, meaning "egg"), followed by aa- (familiar examples being aardvark and Aaron), and ee- (eel, eerie, eek, eesome (attractive)).
Otherwise such words are unlikely to be considered part of the English vocabulary, and almost entirely of foreign origin. Some examples are Ccoya (Inca queen), ʻiʻiwi (a Hawaiian bird), llama, llano (a grassy plain), and llanero (someone who lives on a llano). There are, however, numerous Welsh placenames beginning Ll- (e. g. Llandudno, Llanberis)—plus the familiar personal names Lloyd and Llewel(l)yn—and a smaller number beginning Ff- (e. Llandudno (pronounced /ɬan'dɪdnɔ/ is a Seaside resort and Town in Conwy, Wales. Llanberis is a Town in Gwynedd, north Wales, lying beside the Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia. g. Ffestiniog, Ffrith). Ffestiniog is a community in Gwynedd, Wales, containing several villages in particular the settlements of Llan Ffestiniog and Blaenau Ffestiniog Ffrith is a small village in Llanfynydd parish in Flintshire, north-east Wales. A number of Japanese names begin Ii- when transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
The words euouae, Aeaea and euoi, mentioned earlier under "Many vowels", start with six, five and four vowels respectively. There are very few other words starting with four vowels. Some proper name examples are: El Aaiún (a city in Western Sahara), Aeaetes (a character in Greek mythology), ʻAiea (a town in Hawaiʻi), Aouad (personal name), Aouita (personal name), Euaechme (a character in Greek mythology), Ueueteotl (an Aztec god) and El Ouaer (a retired Tunisian football goalkeeper). El-Aaiún (also transliterated "Laâyoune" or "El Ayun"( Arabic: العيون transliterated al-`ayūn) is a city in Chokri El Ouaer (شُكري الواعر (born August 15, 1966) is a retired Tunisian football Goalkeeper.
The list of words starting with three vowels is rather longer, but most are obscure. Some of the more familiar examples are: aeolian (relating to the wind), aeon (an age), aoudad (a sheep-like animal of northern Africa), eau (French for "water", encountered in English in compounds such as eau de Cologne), Iain (personal name), oeuvre (an artist's body of work), Ouagadougou (capital of the African country Burkina Faso), and ouija (a board used by mediums to reveal spirit messages). The word aeon, also spelled eon or æon, means "age" "forever" or "for Eternity " Cologne or Eau de Cologne is a Toiletry, a Perfume in a style of that from Cologne, Germany. Ouagadougou (ˌwɑgəˈduːguː Mossi wɑgədəgə is the Capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative A ouija board (correctly pronounced "wee-jah" /wiʤə/ although often pronounced "wee-gee" /wiʤi/ and commonly known as a 'Spirit Board') is any flat board Aeolian and aeon are British English spellings. British English or UK English ( BrE, BE, en-GB) is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the
There are similarly few English words beginning with a large number of consonants. Tsktsks appears in Collins Dictionary. HarperCollins is a Publishing company owned by News Corporation. The words crwth and cwtch (of Welsh origin) might be claimed to consist of five consonants, but the "w" clearly functions as a vowel. The crwth is an archaic stringed Musical instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, although once played widely in Europe There is also a surname Schkrohowsky of Russian origin, and The Oxford Companion to Music lists Schtscherbatchew as an alternative spelling (which is a transliteration into the German language) of the surname of Russian composer Vladimir Shcherbachev, although in the Cyrillic alphabet, 'schch' is but one character Щ. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Vladimir Vladimirovich Shcherbachov ( Shcherbachyov Shcherbachev) (Влади́мир Влади́мирович Щербачёв born on January 24, 1889 The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by
There are a reasonable number of words beginning with four consonants. The commonest beginnings are phth- (phthalein, phthisis, Phthirus) and sch- (mostly words of German/Yiddish origin such as schlep, schmaltz, schnapps). Other examples are chthonic, pschent, sphragide and tshwala.
A selective list of words with other unusual initial letter combinations follows. Unsurprisingly, many are of foreign origin: bdellium, bwana, cnemis, ctenoid (comb-like), czar, dghaisa (a Maltese rowing boat), dvandva, dziggetai (a Mongolian wild ass), fjord, Gbari (an African language), gmelina, jnana, kgotla (in southern Africa, a meeting place), kshatriya, kvetch, mbaqanga, mho, mnemonic, mridanga, Mwera (an African language), mzungu (in East Africa, a white person), Ndebele, ngaio, ngwee, oquassa (a type of North American trout), pfennig, pneumonia, ptarmigan, pzazz (glamour), qawwali, qintar, qoph, sforzando, sfumato, sjambok, svelte, tmesis, tsunami, tzar, vlei (in southern Africa, a seasonally flooded area), vroom (a revving sound), Xhosa, xiphoid, xoanan (a carved wooden icon), Yggdrasil, ylem, ynambu (a South American bird), yttrium, ytterbium, zloty, zwitterion, zwinger (originating from German). Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. A dvandva or copulative or coordinative compound refers to two or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and' A fjord or fiord (fjɔːd|fiːɔːd or fiːɔːd is a long narrow Inlet with steep sides created in a valley carved by glacial activity. Gmelina arborea, locally known as Gamhar, is a fast growing deciduous Tree, occurring naturally throughout greater part of India at altitudes Jñāna (also spelled Gñāna; Devanagari ज्ञान is the Sanskrit term for Knowledge or Philosophy. Kshatriya (क्षत्रिय kṣatriya from क्षत्र kṣatra) is one of the four varnas (social orders in Hinduism Mbaqanga is a style of South African Music with Rural Zulu roots that continues to influence musicians worldwide today The siemens (symbol S is the SI derived unit of Electric conductance. A mnemonic device (nəˈmɒnɪk is a Memory aid Commonly met mnemonics are often verbal something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember The mridangam (மிருதங்கம் is a Percussion instrument from India, especially South India. The Mwera are an ethnic and Linguistic group based in southern Tanzania. The kwacha ( ISO 4217 code ZMK is the currency of Zambia. It is subdivided into 100 ngwee. The Pfennig (abbreviation Pf) is an old German coin or note which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the Euro Pneumonia is an inflammatory illness of the Lung. Frequently it is described as lung Parenchyma / alveolar inflammation and abnormal This article deals with the European species named "Ptarmigan" known in North America as the Rock Ptarmigan Qawwali ( Urdu / Persian: قوٌالی; Punjabi / Multani: ਖ਼ਵ੍ਵਾਲੀ قوٌالی Brajbhasha / Hindi Qoph or Qop (In modern Hebrew Kuf, Arabic Qāf) is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic Sfumato is the Italian term for a Painting technique which overlays translucent layers of colour to create perceptions of depth volume and form The sjambok or litupa is the traditional heavy Leather whip of South Africa, sometimes seen as synonymous with Apartheid but actually Tmesis (from Ancient Greek grc τμῆσις tmēsis, "a cutting" temnō, "I cut" is a linguistic phenomenon or A tsunami ((tsuːˈnɑːmi is a series of waves created when Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. See also Xhosa language The Xhosa (ǁʰɔsɑ( people are speakers of Bantu languages living in south-east South Africa, and in the last two The xiphoid process, also known as the xiphisternum is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the Sternum which is usually In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil ( Old Norse Yggdrasill, ˈyɡˌdrasilː the extra -l is a Nominative case marker is the World Ylem is a term which was used by George Gamow, Ralph Alpher and their associates in the late 1940's for a hypothetical original substance or condensed state of matter Yttrium (ˈɪtriəm is a Chemical element with symbol Y and Atomic number 39 The złoty (/ˈzwɔtɨ/, plural for numbers ending in 2 3 and 4 (except 12 13 and 14 złote /ˈzwɔtɛ/ plural for all other numbers złotych /ˈzwɔtɨx/ A zwitterion (first part pronounced "tsvitter" from German " Zwitter " &mdash "hybrid" " Hermaphrodite " is a
Q without U
Containing the letters a, b, c, d. In English, the letter Q is usually followed by the letter U. . .
Boldface and feedback both contain all the letters from a to f (there are many such words, but these are the shortest at eight letters). There is probably no common English word that contains all letters a through g. Feedbacking or deboldfacing may be acceptable in some usage. Black-figured (referring to a type of pottery decoration) and double-refracting are hyphenated examples.
Short words with a, b, c, d, and e in any order include abduce, backed, beclad, and cabled.
The shortest word with first occurrences of a, b, c, d, in e in order is abscede (OED; to move away). The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English The shortest such word without repetitions is absconder.
The longest word consisting entirely of letters from the first half of the alphabet (a through m) may be Hamamelidaceae (a plant family) at 14 letters. The Hamamelidaceae is a family of Flowering plants in the order Saxifragales, including 27 genera and about 80-90 species all Shrubs and small Long common words include fickleheaded (12 letters), fiddledeedee (12), blackballed (11), and blackmailed (11).
Among the longest words consisting only of the letters a through g (the names of the notes of a musical scale) are: cabbaged (past tense of "to cabbage", meaning to steal), debagged (past tense of "to debag", meaning to remove the trousers of), Fabaceae and Fagaceae (all 8 letters). Fabaceae or Leguminosae is a large and economically important family of Flowering plants which is commonly known as the legume family, pea The family Fagaceae, or beech family, comprises about 900 species of both Evergreen and Deciduous trees and shrubs which are characterized by alternate
The first seven letters of abecedarian (someone who is learning the alphabet) use only the first five letters of the alphabet. Abecedarians were a 16th century German sect of Anabaptists who effected an absolute disdain for all human knowledge contending that God would Several other words share this property, such as acceded and deadbeat.
Soupspoons (10) consists entirely of letters from the second half of alphabet, as does the hyphenated topsy-turvy and a number of rarer 10-letter words such as nonsupport (failure to support), puttyroots (plural of puttyroot, normally spelt putty-root: a species of orchid), and zoosporous (relating to a zoospore, a type of fungal or algal spore). A zoospore is a motile asexual Spore utilizing a Flagellum for Locomotion.
Zzyzx, a location in California, consists of only the last three letters of the alphabet. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean.
Typewriter words
The longest words spelt solely with the left hand when typing properly using a QWERTY keyboard may be the 14-letter aftercataracts (secondary cataracts of the eye) and sweaterdresses (plural of sweaterdress, a knitted dress). QWERTY (ˈkwɜː(rti is the most common modern-day Keyboard layout on English-language computer and Typewriter keyboards It takes its The longest common words are the 12-letter desegregated, desegregates, reverberated, reverberates and stewardesses.
The 13-letter chemical name phyllophyllin can be typed solely with the right hand. The longest such word that is reasonably common is the 9-letter polyphony. In Music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent Melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( Monophony The phrase Hoi polloi is another 9-letter example.
Common words of ten letters that can be spelled solely with the top line of letters on a QWERTY keyboard include perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, property, and, fittingly, typewriter (though this may have been a deliberate goal driving the design of the QWERTY layout). QWERTY (ˈkwɜː(rti is the most common modern-day Keyboard layout on English-language computer and Typewriter keyboards It takes its A typewriter is a mechanical or Electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that when pressed cause characters to be printed on a medium There are at least two eleven-letter words, both rare: proterotype and rupturewort. Herniaria is a genus of flowering plants in the pink family known generally as ruptureworts.
The eight-letter words ashfalls, Falashas, Hadassah, Haggadah and Haskalah can all be typed on the middle row of letters on the keyboard. Hadassah the Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish Zionist Volunteer women's organization. The Haggadah (הגדה is a Jewish religious text that sets out the order of the Passover Seder. Haskalah ( Hebrew: השכלה "enlightenment" "education" from sekhel " Intellect " "mind") the Jewish Enlightenment The longest such common word is probably the seven-letter alfalfa. Alfalfa ( Medicago sativa) is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop
No English word takes its letters exclusively from the bottom row of letters on a keyboard; neither vowels nor pseudo-vowels reside on this row.
Letters in alphabetic order
The longest words whose letters are in alphabetical order include the eight-letter Aegilops (a grass genus), and the seven-letter addeems (from the archaic verb addeem, meaning to award), alloquy (an archaic or literary word for an address), beefily (in a beefy manner), billowy (like a wave or surge), dikkops (a South African bird) and gimmors (plural of gimmor, an old-fashioned word for a mechanical contrivance). Aegilops is a genus of plants generally known as goatgrasses and belonging to the grass family Poaceae. Common six-letter words sharing this property include accept, almost, begins, effort and various others.
In reverse alphabetical order are the nine-letter spoonfeed and the eight-letter spoonfed and trollied.
There are a number of words that contain a string of four consecutive letters of the alphabet. The commonest combination is rstu, with most examples having the prefix under-, over- or super- (e. g. understudy, overstuff, superstud). Words with the combination mnop include cremnophobia (a fear of steep slopes), gymnopaedic (of birds, having unfeathered young), limnophilous (marsh-loving) and Prumnopitys (a genus of conifers). Prumnopitys is a Genus of Conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. Chelmno, a town in Poland, has the unusual combination lmno. For the concentration camp located near a village with a similar name Chełmno nad Nerem see Chełmno extermination camp.
The most common words formed only from consecutive letters of the alphabet are hi and no. Other possibilities are limited to ab (short for abdominal), de (arguably foreign), def (slang word meaning excellent), ef (the name of the letter f) and op (short for operation).
Palindromes
A palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the same whether read forward or backward, disregarding punctuation - such as "Madam, I'm Adam. A palindrome is a word phrase number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction (the adjustment of punctuation and spaces between words " The longest common single-word palindromes are "malayalam" (a south Indian language),deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator. See Wiktionary:Appendix:Palindromic words for a comprehensive list.
Kangaroo words
A kangaroo word is a word that contains all letters of another word, in order, with the same meaning. A kangaroo word is a word that contains letters of another word in order with the same meaning
First and last words by reversed spelling
In a dictionary that lists the reversed spellings of words alphabetically, some of the first entries (excluding proper names) would be:
- a (=a, the indefinite article)
- aa (=aa, a type of lava)
- aab (=baa, the sound made by a sheep)
- aahc (=chaa, a variant of char, British slang for tea)
- aakkram (=markkaa, partitive singular (used after numbers) of markka, a former Finnish unit of currency)
- . The markka ( Finnish) or mark ( Swedish) was the Currency of Finland from 1860 until February 28, 2002, when . .
Some proper names would appear earlier: aabbirem (=Meribbaa, a Biblical name); aabmup (=Pumbaa); aabre (=Erbaa, a town in Turkey); aacisuan (=Nausicaa); aaemu (=Umeaa); aagsin (=Nisga'a). Timon and Pumbaa are a fictional Meerkat and Warthog duo first introduced in Disney 's popular 1994 animated film The Lion King In ancient Greek literature, Nausicaa (often rendered Nausicaä or Nausikaa Greek: Ναυσικάα) a daughter of King Umeå Municipality ( Umeå kommun) is one of 290 Municipalities of Sweden. The Nisga'a (nisqaʔa often formerly spelled Nishga and spelled in the Nisga'a language as Nisg̱a'a, are an Indigenous nation or
The first entries that correspond to common words (including some proper names) would be, in normal letter order, casaba, Abba, Sheba, amoeba, Toshiba, Elba, melba, mamba, samba. ( is a multinational conglomerate manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Elba (Ilva is an island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino.
The last few entries all come from words ending -uzz, including:
- zzuh (=huzz, to buzz or murmur)
- zzuks (=skuzz, variant of scuzz)
- zzul (=luzz, British slang, meaning to chuck)
- zzum (=muzz, British slang, meaning to confuse)
- zzurf (=fruzz, to brush hair the wrong way)
First and last words in anagram dictionary
Suppose that, in a dictionary of anagrams, the letters of each word are sorted into alphabetical order (for example, "alphabet" becomes "aabehlpt"), and then the resulting strings are themselves sorted alphabetically. In the main type of Anagram dictionary, the letters in words or phrases are rearranged in alphabetical order and these transpositions are themselves then ordered alphabetically After the usual culprits a and aa, some of the first few words in the dictionary (including only the singular form of nouns) would be:
- aaaaaacceglllnorst (=astragalocalcaneal)
- aaaaaaccegllnorrst (=calcaneoastragalar)
- aaaaaalmrsstt (=taramasalata, a fish roe paste)
- aaaaaannrstyy (=Satyanarayana, another name for Vishnu)
- aaaaabbcdrr (=abracadabra, a word said when performing a magic trick)
The end of the list might appear something like:
- uw (=Wu, a Chinese dialect (and region))
- ux (=xu, a Vietnamese unit of currency)
- uy (=yu, Chinese jade)
- uz (=Zu, a Sumerian god)
- uzz (=zuz, an ancient Hebrew coin)
- xyyzz (=xyzzy, a magic word from the Colossal Cave Adventure)
- xyyzzz (=zyzzyx, a type of wasp)
Other unusual spellings
Like the letter y, the letter w can serve as both a consonant and orthographic vowel; for example, how is pronounced /hau/ (with w representing the second half of the diphthong. For the song by Eggstone, see Vive La Différence!. Taramosalata ( Greek:ταραμοσαλάτα or Taramas is a Greek and Turkish For other meanings see Vishnu (disambiguation. Vishnu ( IAST viṣṇu Devanagari विष्णु (honorific Abracadabra (sometimes spelled Abrakadabra) is a word used as an Incantation. Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as ADVENT, Colossal Cave, or Adventure) (Crowther 1976 Crowther Zyzzyx is a Monospecific genus of Sand wasp, containing a brightly-colored medium-sized species Z The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with )
The word cwm (pronounced "koom", defined as a steep-walled hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in English in which w represents a nucleus vowel, as is crwth (pronounced "krooth", a type of stringed instrument). The crwth is an archaic stringed Musical instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, although once played widely in Europe Both words are in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, which was originally the G & C Merriam Company of Springfield Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books They derive from the Welsh use of w to represent a vowel. Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic The word cwm is commonly applied to Welsh place names; cwms of glacial origin are a common feature of Welsh geography. "Glacial" and "Glaciation" redirect here For the geological periods see Glacial period. It is also used to describe features in the Himalayas.
Both these examples may be classified as "words of foreign origin", as they are actual words in the Welsh language which have been absorbed into English. See coombe as the south-west English equivalent of cwm.
Scrabble
The highest-scoring words that would fit on a Scrabble board are benzoxycamphors (45) (not in any on-line dictionaries and possibly fictitious [4]), sesquioxidizing (42) (sesquioxidized is in the OED), or oxyphenbutazone (41) (in both the TWL06 and SOWPODS official scrabble dictionaries). The verb "to scrabble" also means to scratch scramble or scrape about see Wiktionaryscrabble. A sesquioxide is an Oxide containing three atoms of Oxygen with two Atoms (or radicals of another element The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English Oxyphenbutazone is a Metabolite of Phenylbutazone. Scrabble "Oxyphenbutazone" holds the title for the highest known theoretically possible Official Tournament and Club Word List or Tournament Word List, referred to as OTaCWL, OWL, or TWL, is the official word authority for tournament SOWPODS is a term used to refer to the word list used in tournament Scrabble in most countries except the USA, Thailand and Canada. With the Q and Z fortuitously on the double-letter-score squares, 'sesquioxidizing' played across an edge of the board (which has three triple word squares) could score 62 × 27 = 1674 by itself, thus more than doubling the high score for an entire game in the English language Scrabble, 830, set by Micheal Cresta in 2006. Benzoxycamphors would score only 59 × 27 = 1593 while oxyphenbutazone would only score 54 × 27 = 1458. Since there are only 7 letters to play in a turn, 8 of the 15 letters of these words need to be on the board already. [3] Using SOWPODS words only in the rest of the game, single move scores could hypothetically be obtained of 1785 points with oxyphenbutazone and 2044 points with sesquioxidizing. [4]
Pyramid words
A pyramid word contains a single occurrence of one letter, two of another letter, three of the next, etc. The longest examples have four occurrences of the most common letter. Common examples are sleeveless, deadheaded and sereneness. Others include rememberer, restresses, chachalaca, kotukutuku, susurruses and Sassanians. Chachalacas are one of the groups of cracid Birds. They all belong into the Genus Ortalis. Fuchsia excorticata, the New Zealand Fuchsia also known as Kotukutuku, is a New Zealand native tree belonging to the family The Sassanid Empire or Sassanian Dynasty or Sassanian Dynasty (ساسانیان) is the name used for the third Iranian dynasty and the second Persian empire In addition, Tennessee's and peppertree have been cited by Richard Lederer, with an analysis of some other interesting properties of the latter. Richard Lederer (born May 26, 1938) is an American author speaker and teacher best known for his books on Word play and the English language [5]
Pairs and groups of words
Homophones
Ewe and you are a pair of words with identical pronunciations that have no letters in common. YOU' ' is a South African magazine which is the English version of the Afrikaans family magazine Huisgenoot. Another example is the pair eye and I. Eyes are organs that detect Light, and send signals along the Optic nerve to the visual areas of the brain I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English name is i (aɪ However, such word pairs are often dependent on the accent of the speaker. For instance, Canadians might recognize a and eh as such a pair, whereas other American English speakers might not. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural Eh (ˈeɪ or /ˈɛ/ in English is a spoken Interjection in Armenian, Japanese, English, Dutch, Italian, In Ireland, ewe and yo are homophonous also. Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world " Yo " is an American English Slang Interjection. It was highly popularized after being commonly used among Italian
Rarely, pairs of homophones have exactly opposite meanings. A well-known example is raise (to build or rise) and raze (to demolish or push down by force). The antonyms cleave (to split apart) and cleave (to adhere, or stick together) are homographs as well as homophones.
See also
Wiktionary appendices
Homographs
Homographs are words with identical spellings but different meanings. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning A homograph is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings A famous example is the town of Reading (pronounced to rhyme with threading) vs. Reading (ˈrɛdɪŋ as Redding) is a town in England, located at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, midway between the gerund reading, as in reading a book (pronounced to rhyme with feeding). At one time the bookseller Blackwell's had a branch in Reading, signed "Blackwells Reading Book Shop", in which either pronunciation made sense. Blackwell UK is a national chain of bookshops, online retail mail order and library services which has an annual turnover of £ 74 million
See also List of English homographs. Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings (and may or may not have different pronunciations
Self-antonyms
A few English words have such disparate definitions that one meaning is the opposite of another. An auto-antonym (or more properly autantonym) or contronym (sometimes misspelled contranym) is a word with a Homograph that is also an These are called "self-antonyms", "auto-antonyms" or "contronyms". Examples include cleave or clip (joining things together or taking them apart), fast (move quickly or fix in one spot) and enjoin (to cause something to be done, to forbid something from being done). There are also rare instances of pairs of English words that are pronounced the same but have opposite meanings (e. g. raze and raise).
Sequences of words formed by the addition of letters
The nine-word sequence I, in, sin, sing, sting, string, staring, starting (or starling), startling can be formed by successively adding one letter to the previous word. There are a number of other nine-word sequences that use only common words, and numerous shorter sequences, such as the seven-word a, at, rat, rate, irate, pirate, pirates.
If rare words, proper names and/or obsolete words are allowed then sequences of at least eleven words are possible. One example is: a, ma (mother), mac (raincoat, British), mace (spice), macle (mineral), macule (skin spot), maculae (plural of macula, variant of macule), maculate (blotchy), masculate (to make strong, obsolete), emasculate, emasculated. The nutmegs Myristica are a Genus of Evergreen Trees indigenous to tropical southeast Asia and Australasia The macule is the simplest dermatological Lesion. It is flat and can only be seen and not felt
Al, Ala, Alan, Alana, Alayna is a sequence consisting only of first names.
A seven-word sequence in which letters are added to the end of the previous word is: ma, max (used in phrases such as to the max), maxi (a long skirt), maxim, maxima (plural of maximum), maximal, maximals (plural of maximal, used as noun in mathematics). An eight-word sequence including proper nouns is: ta (thanks, British), tam (Scottish cap), Tama (asteroid), Tamar (English river), tamari (soy sauce), tamarin (monkey), tamarind (tree), tamarinds (plural). The Tamar is a River in south western England, that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east and Cornwall (to the west Soy sauce ( US) soya sauce ( Commonwealth) shoyu ( Japan) or sillao ( Peru) is a fermented Sauce The tamarins are any of the Squirrel -sized New World monkeys from the family Cebidae, classified as the genus Saguinus. This article refers to the tree For other uses see Tamarindo (disambiguation.
The one-syllable word are, with the addition of one letter, becomes area, a word with three syllables. Area is a Quantity expressing the two- Dimensional size of a defined part of a Surface, typically a region bounded by a closed Curve.
A six-word sequence in which letters are added to the beginning of the words is: hes (plural of he, used as a noun to mean a male), shes (plural of she), ashes, lashes, plashes (plural of plash, a splashing sound), splashes.
"ough" words
- See Ough (combination). Ough is a combination in the English language. In Middle English where the spelling arose it was probably pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative
Masculine and feminine adjectives
While common in other languages, in English there is perhaps only one adjective, blond, that declines for masculine and feminine: a blond man, a blonde woman. Blond (also spelled blonde, see below) or fair-haired is a Hair color characterized by low levels of the dark Pigment eumelanin Sometimes the same distinction is applied to brunet (masculine) and brunette (feminine).
Long words
Antidisestablishmentarianism listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for quite a long time, but today the medical term pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that it was coined to provide an answer to the question 'What is the longest English word?'. The longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes an English word. Antidisestablishmentarianism (listen to,) is a political position that originated in nineteenth-century Britain, where antidisestablishmentarians were opposed to The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English The longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes an English word.
The Guinness Book of Records, in its 1992 and subsequent editions, declared the "longest real word" in the English language to be floccinaucinihilipilification at 29 letters. Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records (and in previous U Floccinaucinihilipilification ( American English see below for more pronunciation possibilities (or variously flocci' p' aucinihilipilification, as described Defined as the act of estimating (something) as worthless, its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741.
Chemical nomenclature of organic compounds and especially proteins can easily beat any record, as official nomenclature rules lead to legitimate names thousands of letters long. An organic compound is any member of a large class of Chemical compounds whose Molecules contain Carbon. Proteins are large Organic compounds made of Amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by Peptide bonds between the Carboxyl
Longest one-syllable word
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is either squirrelled, scraunched, or one of several 9-letter words (such as squelched). This is a list of the candidates for longest English word of A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds The first two words may be pronounced using more than one syllable in some accents. In Linguistics, an accent is a manner of Pronunciation of a language Strengths is the longest with only one vowel. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract
Unrhymable words
In the most common form of rhyme, words rhyme if they end in identically or nearly-identically sounding syllables, and match in stress. This article is about the poetic technique For the form of ice see Rime ice. If a word has an unusual or unique ending syllable and no other word has a stress pattern to match, it does not rhyme. In Poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. While many polysyllabic words have no rhyme, only a handful of single-syllable words fit this description. Excluding disputed loan words, whose foreign sounds make them obviously difficult, such unrhymable English words include bulb, depth, month, pint, and wolf. Many of these words' plurals are also unrhymable. Although it has two syllables, orange is arguably the most famous unrhymable word, though there exists a rare Sussex surname "Gorringe"[6] and a mountain in Wales named "Blorenge". Orange is both a Noun and an Adjective in the English language. [7]
The word "purple" is also noted for its lack of rhymes, though there is a rare word curple, meaning the hind quarters of a horse and a Scottish English word hirple meaning to walk with a limp. Silver is commonly considered unrhymable, but in fact rhymes with chilver, a provincial English term meaning a ewe-lamb or ewe mutton. Note that some words rhyme if prefixed derivatives are allowed (like empurple or desilver), but this is not commonly considered proper rhyme.
The most common way to concoct a "rhyme" for such words—usually in humorous poetry—is to rhyme it with the first syllable of a word that is split over two lines, thus forming an enjambment (this is sometimes called Procrustean rhyme). Enjambment (also spelled enjambement) is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a Phrase, Clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or between two "Damastes" redirects here For the huntman spider see Damastes or Sparassidae. This article is about the poetic technique For the form of ice see Rime ice. An example is rhyming orange with car eng/ine, noted by Douglas Hofstadter. Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15 1945 in New York New York) is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness thinking and creativity Likewise, Stephen Sondheim rhymed silver with "will, ver-/bosity, and time",[8] and Willard R. Espy managed the couplet "I might distil Ver-/ona's silver". Stephen Joshua Sondheim (born March 22 1930 is an American musical and film composer and lyricist winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven Willard Richardson Espy (11 December 1910&ndash20 February 1999 was a U
A song famous for this style of rhyme was Arlo Guthrie's Motorcycle Song. Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10 1947 is an American folk singer
Words with large numbers of meanings
For many years, the word set had the most entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English However, the top five entries of the Online Third Edition with large numbers of meanings are as follows [5]:
- make
- set
- run
- take
- go
References
- ^ Berry, Mary: "Evovae", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed April 6 2006), [1]
- ^ Fun with Words – Consecutive letters
- ^ The Scrabble Omnibus, Gyles Brandreth, ISBN 0-00-218081-2
- ^ Record for the Highest Scoring Scrabble Move at scrabulizer. Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is an English Author, ex- Politician and Media personality. com, accessed 2008-05-30
- ^ A man of my words: reflections on the English language, Richard Lederer, ISBN 0312317859
- ^ From the television programme QI
- ^ [2]From the Abergavenney Tourist Guide
- ^ - TIME. Richard Lederer (born May 26, 1938) is an American author speaker and teacher best known for his books on Word play and the English language In traditional Chinese culture, qi (zh [[wikt氣 氣]] Pinyin qì, Wade-Giles ch'i Jyutping Retrieved on 2008-02-09. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 474 - Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
See also
- English language
- Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics
- Inherently funny word
- Irregular plurals of English nouns
- Lists of English words of international origin
- List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations
- Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
- Cellar door
- Ghoti
- Siamese twins (English language)
- Constrained writing: literature with uncommon properties
- Lipogram, a type of constrained writing in which prescribed letters are not allowed to be used
External links
- Word Oddities
- Word Trivia
- Strange and Unusual Dictionaries
- What does antidisestablishmentarianism mean?
- Fun with words
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