Why The World's Longest Word Will Never Appear In Any Dictionary Or Record Book!
Language
Reading Level
Listen to Article
Search for the term 'world's longest word' and you probably find Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - the scientific name for a lung disease commonly referred to as silicosis. While this is technically true because it is the longest word you will ever see published in a dictionary or for that matter in most places, there are many words that believe it or not, are much longer than that.
While the reason they are not published or given any credence is because they are purportedly not 'real' words, it may also be because they are sooooo long that including them would require the creation of a stand-alone edition!
In fact, the real longest word is so lengthy that even we do not dare publish it in its full 189, 819 letters - The only thing we can tell you is that it starts with methionyl . . . and ends with . . . isoleucine. And incase you are wondering, it took the one person that did dare to say it aloud, a whopping 3.5 hours!
What is even more surprising is that this word is not just a gibberish concoction made up by some crazy person, but a giant protein appropriately dubbed Titin that is made up of 244 unique folded protein domains and also contains the largest number of exons (363) in any single gene. The protein that is used by the body for contraction of striated muscle tissues may not be the most crucial one that we need, but it is not totally worthless either! It is of course better known for its long convoluted scientific name! For those of you curious enough to hear the word aloud, below is the full 3.5 hour video version - test it out and see if you can get through even a tenth of it!
Resources: odditycentral.com,wikipedia.org
Cite Article
Learn Keywords in this Article
840 Comments
- kevenover 8 yearsno way
- Annoying orangeover 8 yearsHere's one is a keeper
- Lily hover 8 yearsOh so More than 180120 letters
- crysohardover 8 yearsbasically my name
- not the againover 8 yearsAll i hear is yule and mule. lol
- cookiemonster91over 8 yearsLol so true
- trowbmig000over 8 yearsi fell asleep LoL
- jinkim0808over 8 yearsOMG, so LONG!
- egghead44almost 9 yearsWow! I knew that word already from a tv show though!
- wowedalmost 9 yearsWow that is crazy! i wouldn't do that.... waste of time!
- lotsalmost 9 yearsI showed my teacher and now thats our spelling word.
- trowbmig000over 8 yearsgood luck on that
- kittycutiealmost 9 yearsLol!!!!!!