Longest word in French

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This article lists some of the longest words in the French language.

Contents

As in many languages, chemical nomenclature may be used to construct indefinitely long chemical names (if referring to fictional molecules), and therefore is not on this list. The chemical name of titin could be translated, and therefore would be the longest technical word in the French language.

The longest word listed below, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobique (38 letters) means, ironically, "suffering from the fear (or phobia) of long words". The word is formed from the Latin word sesquipedalia (singular sesquipedalis ), which the Ancient Roman poet Horace used in Ars Poetica to describe excessively long words; literally, it means "a foot-and-a-half long".

Like the other adejctives in the list, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobique can be pluralised by adding the letter s to the end. The adjective interdépartemental (18 letters), which also appears in the list, can be made longer by appending the letters es, which gives its plural, grammatically gendered form.

Long words

WordLettersSyllablesPart of speechTranslationRef.
hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobique 3813 Adjective hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic [1]
dichlorodiphényltrichloroéthane 3111 Noun dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobie 2913 Noun hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia [2] [1]
intergouvernementalisation 2610 Noun intergovernmentalisation [1]
anticonstitutionnellement 259 Adverb anticonstitutionally [1]
apopathodiaphulatophobie 2410 Noun apopathodiaphulatophobia [3] [4] [5]
désinstitutionnalisation 249 Noun deinstitutionalization
autocheirothanatophobie 239 Noun autocheirothanatophobia [6]
paraskevidékatriaphobie 2310 Noun paraskavedekatriaphobia [7] [1]
dyspondéromorphophobie 228 Noun dysponderomorphophobia [8]
magnétoplasmadynamique 229 Adjective Magnetoplasmadynamic
interdépartemental 187 Adjective interdepartmental [9]
triskaïdekaphobie 176 Noun triskaidekaphobia

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Martin, Philippe (2018). "Groupes accentuels et phrasé". Intonation, structure prosodique et ondes cérébrales: introduction à l'analyse prosodique. Série Linguistique du langage oral (in French). London: ISTE Editions. ISBN   978-1-78405-370-3. OCLC   1033658031 – via Google Books.
  2. ↑ Case 2014, p. 86–87.
  3. ↑ Case 2014, pp. 27–28.
  4. ↑ George, Kenneth E. M. (1991). Néologismes du français contemporain. Datations et documents lexicographiques (in French). Klincksieck. p. 175. ISBN   978-2-252-02749-3. OCLC   256644341.
  5. ↑ Leconte, Bernard (2007). "Diafoirus en pleine forme". A la recherche du bon français (in French). Éditions Lanore. p. 57. ISBN   978-2-85157-301-8 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ Case 2014, p. 34–35.
  7. ↑ Case 2014, p. 125.
  8. ↑ Case 2014, p. 65.
  9. ↑ "Interdépartemental". Le Dictionnaire. Retrieved 25 June 2018.

References

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