Do you find your active vocabulary riddled with mere one- or two-syllable words? Or are you the type of person who insists on calling DNA “deoxyribonucleic acid” and SCUBA gear a “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”?

If the highlight of your month is when the mailman delivers the current edition of Reader’s Digest and you flip directly to the Word Power section, then please—read on unabashed. But if you stumble over simple words like psychoneuroimmunology, anthropomorphism, compartmentalization, or the ever-popular song “Supercalafragalistic” from Mary Poppins, then please—read on with CAUTION. If you find yourself in the second of these two categories, the ensuing discussion and the words used therein should never (except under extremely rare circumstances) be rearticulated in actual conversation!

Come. Let’s perambulate the realm of extremely obnoxious long words. Simply glance back to the title of this article to discover one of these very beasts. Folks, these aren’t words that you’ll find in your paper-thin College Dictionary. No sirrreee. For these words you’ll need to lug that 300 pound behemoth of a dictionary out of your great-grandmother’s armoire, which is hidden in the back corner of her attic. You know. The one the mice have been building their nests with for the past 5 years and they still haven’t made a dent in the “A”s. That’s the dictionary you need.

I compiled a Top Ten list of some of the zaniest of these long words. Here’s what I came up with:

1) Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. Try saying that one ten times fast. This word is reportedly a lung disease caused by inhaling volcanic dust. If you should be unfortunate enough to contract this disease, you probably wouldn’t have enough lung capacity left to even say the name of your illness!

2) Floccinaucinihilipilification. All 29 letters of this word are a palatable treat. Its meaning is “an estimation of something as worthless.” I can imagine what some of you are thinking right about now:

Knights Page: free.
Two aspirin from the medicine machine after reading this article: 50¢
New Dictionary: $30
Learning really big words: Floccinaucinihilipilification

3) Honorificabilitudinitatibus. It’s rare that you find a word whose definition is shorter than the word itself. In this case, it’s true. Honorificabilitudinitatibus is defined as “honorableness.” Why someone wouldn’t just say honorableness is beyond me. Shakespeare actually used this word in his play Love’s Labor’s Lost:

“O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.”

4) Disproportionableness. At last! A word that can be integrated into actual, everyday vocabulary. Unfortunately, the disproportionableness of this word to the rest of your vocabulary may make its usage seem just a wee bit forced.

5) Incomprehensibilities. An anxious patient. A green orange. Jumbo shrimp. The meat stuff they put in the Spam. The Vikings winning a Super Bowl. (P.S. I am a Viking’s fan, but still…)

6) Antitransubstantiationalist. This is exactly what we Lutherans are. That someone would believe in transubstantiation is incomprehensible (see #5). I wonder if we couldn’t add an –ic suffix to the word to say that we are antitransubstantiationalistic!

7) Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamogg. Funny how Prof. Heidtke never put that one on your geography map test! The tongue-in-cheek translation of the Algonquin name for this Massachusetts lake is, “You fish on your side, I fish on my side, nobody fish in the middle.” However, the word actually translates as “Englishmen at Manchaug at the Fishing Place at the Boundary.” Unfortunately, on the map this lake is usually called Lake Webster or Lake Chaubunagungamogg (alternate spellings possible).

8) Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Hawaii’s unofficial state fish is this little guy with a big name. The fish usually doesn’t exceed 8 or 9 inches in length. The humuhumu belongs to the triggerfish family and lives in the coral reefs around Hawaii.

9) Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarr-hounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. James Joyce made up this word among eight other words of similar length for his novel Finnegan’s Wake. Look at it. How is that even a word? He must have hit random keystrokes on his typewriter until he decided the word was long enough. The nonsense word you see above supposedly represents a thunderclap depicting the fall of Adam and Eve. Do you hear it? I’m sure I don’t.

10) Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian. At last, the word featured in the title of this article. The very fitting definition given to this word is “pertaining to a very long word.” I hope that you found this hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian Top Ten list as interesting as I did.

A short warning before you begin to incorporate these words into your everyday vocabulary: it is generally debated whether some of the Top Ten are actual words or not (#1,9,10). In my humble opinion, #9 is definitely not a word, but the rest of the words seem plausible enough.

So, the next time you get in a spirited repartee with either of the Balge brothers, or Prof. Koelpin, whip one of these words out of the old cranium to stop them dead in their tracks— unless, of course, they happened to read this article too. Then you may be in trouble and have to fall back to a last resort.

What is this last resort, you ask?

Using all ten of these words in a single sentence.

Sources: “A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia.” http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words11.html

“Longest Words.” http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_longest.html

Paul Kanzenbach is a STEP Junior Choral emphasis

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