The longest word in Portuguese has 46 letters and refers to a person with lung problems due to inhalation of volcanic ash. Despite its size, it is far from being one of the biggest words in the world.
Do you know what is the longest word in the Portuguese language recorded in a dictionary?
With 46 letters and 19 syllables, the word was registered in 2001 in the Houaiss dictionary, in Brazil, and describes an individual who has a lung disease caused by breathing in volcanic ash.
So, take a deep breath, hold your breath and try to say, without making mistakes: pneumoultramicroscopicossilicovulcanoconiótico.
Despite its size, pneumoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiotic is far from being one of the biggest words in the world.
This is due to the fact that the Portuguese is a flexible language (also called inflectional or fusional), unlike Hungarian, for example, which is an agglutinative language, that is, it tends to agglutinate.
“We agglutinate too, but not as much as in other languages. Our limits, especially in everyday language, they are very short“, summarizes professor Pasquale Cipro Neto to BBC Brasil.
Some words, however, are not in the dictionary and are restricted to medical literature. This is the case with the chemical name of the largest protein in the world, known as titin. The word has 189,819 letters. It takes around 3.5 hours to pronounce it.
In the United Kingdom, one of the longest recorded words is the name of a train station in a town in Wales: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
See some of the biggest words in the world in other languages:
German
Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft — Association of Subordinate Construction Employees of the Power Station of the Danube Steamboat Company
Danish
Speciallaegepraksisplanaegningsstabiliseringsperiode — stabilization period for a specialist’s medical practice
Spanish
Electroencephalographer — those who study practice Electroencephalography
French
Anticonstitutionnellement — something that goes against the Constitution
Greek
λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυπ οτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλ επικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλι οκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων — the word is mentioned in the comedy The Women in the Assembly, written by Aristophanes – 447-385 BC
Dutch
Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamheden — preparation for a children’s carnival parade
Hungarian
Megszentségtelenithetetlenségeskedéseitekért — describes the behavior of someone who cannot be disrespected
Italian
Precipitevolissimevolmente — someone who acts hastily
Swedish
Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoraeistoa do anläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten — preparatory work contributing to the discussion on the material support maintenance system of the aviation simulator inspection device of the northern Baltic Sea coast artillery
