List of the longest English words with one syllable
Encyclopedia
This is a list of candidates for longest English
word of one syllable
, i.e. monosyllables with the most letters. A list of 9,123 English monosyllables published in 1957 includes three ten-letter words: scraunched, scroonched, and squirreled. Other sources include words as long or longer. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, dialect, proper noun
, or nonce word
.
s remain monosyllabic when adding a tenth letter and apostrophe to form the possessive:
It is productive
in English to convert
a (proper) noun into an eponym
ous verb or adjective:
past participles ending -ed into nouns, allowing regular plurals with -s. He lists five verbs in Webster's Third International generating 10-letter monosyllables scratcheds, screecheds, scroungeds, squelcheds, stretcheds; from the verb strength in Webster's Second International he forms the 11-letter strengtheds.
The past tense ending -ed and the archaic second person singular ending -st can be combined into -edst; for example "In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul" . While this ending is usually pronounced as a separate syllable from the verb stem, it may be abbreviated -'dst to indicate elision. Attested examples include scratch'dst and stretch'dst, each of which has one syllable spelled with ten letters plus apostrophe
.
's 1995 novel Self
includes 45-letter Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and 35-letter Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
word of one syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
, i.e. monosyllables with the most letters. A list of 9,123 English monosyllables published in 1957 includes three ten-letter words: scraunched, scroonched, and squirreled. Other sources include words as long or longer. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, dialect, proper noun
Proper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
, or nonce word
Nonce word
A nonce word is a word used only "for the nonce"—to meet a need that is not expected to recur. Quark, for example, was formerly a nonce word in English, appearing only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Murray Gell-Mann then adopted it to name a new class of subatomic particle...
.
List
| word | pronunciation | letters | source | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| schtroumpfed | ˈʃtruːmpft | 12 | Eco | The original French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... name for smurf is schtroumpf, and is used as an all-purpose noun and verb by Smurfs and in imitation of them. The form schtroumpfed is used in Alistair McEwen's English translation of an essay by Umberto Eco Umberto Eco Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory... : "Let us suppose that an English speaker of average culture hears a Schtroumpf poet reciting I schtroumpfed lonely as a schtroumpf." However, this is intended to represent the Schtroumpf language rather than English. |
| squirrelled | /ˈskwɜrld/ | 11 | LPD; MWOD Pronunciation: |
compressed American pronunciation General American General American , also known as Standard American English , is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States... of a word which in British RP Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms... always has two syllables /ˈskwɪrəld/. In America the given spelling is a variant of the more usual squirreled: see -led and -lled spellings. |
| broughammed | /ˈbruːmd/ | 11 | Sc.Am. | meaning "travelled by brougham Brougham (carriage) A brougham was a light, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage built in the 19th century. It was either invented for Scottish jurist Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, or simply made fashionable by his example... ", by analogy with bussed, biked, carted etc. Suggested by poet William Harmon William Harmon William Harmon is James Gordon Hanes Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of five books of poetry and editor of A Handbook to Literature. His most recent poetry has appeared in Blink and Light.- Life :William Harmon was born in Concord,... in a competition to find the longest monosyllable. |
| schmaltzed | /ˈʃmɔːltst/, /ˈʃmɒltst/, /ˈʃmæltst/ | 10 | OED | meaning "imparted a sentimental atmosphere to" e.g. of music; with a 1969 attestation for the past tense. |
| squirreled | /ˈskwɜrld/ | 10 | LPD; MWOD; Moser | the more usual American spelling of squirrelled. |
| scrootched | /ˈskruːtʃt/ | 10 | AHD | variant of scrooched, meaning "crouched" |
| scroonched | /ˈskrʊnʃt/ | 10 | W3NID; Moser | variant of scrunched, meaning "squeezed". |
| scraunched | /ˈskrɔːnʃt/ | 10 | W3NID; Moser | a "chiefly dialect Nonstandard dialect A nonstandard dialect is a dialect that does not have the institutional support or sanction that a standardized dialect has.Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has its own vocabulary and an internally consistent grammar and syntax; and it may be spoken using a variety of accents. Describing a... " word, meaning "crunched". |
| broughamed | /ˈbruːmd/ | 10 | Shaw | a shorter variant of broughammed, used by George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60... in a piece of journalism. |
| strengthed | /ˈstrɛŋθt/ | 10 | OED | an obsolete verb meaning "strengthen", "force", and "summon one's strength". The latest citation is 1614 (1479 for strengthed), at which time the Early Modern English Early Modern English Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English... pronunciation would have been disyllabic. |
| schwartzed | /ˈʃwɔrtst/ | 10 | meaning "responded 'schwartz' to a player without making eye-contact" in the game zoom schwartz profigliano Zoom Schwartz Profigliano Zoom Schwartz Profigliano is a verbal "tag" drinking game with many variations. One player at a time is active . The active player states a command from a predefined set of words, which typically include "zoom," "schwartz," and "profigliano." The command shifts active status to another player,... . |
|
| schnappsed | /ˈʃnæpst/ | 10 | Sc.Am. | meaning "drank schnapps Schnapps Schnapps is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage. The English word schnapps is derived from the German Schnaps , which can refer to any strong alcoholic drink but particularly those containing at least 32% ABV... "; proposed by poet George Starbuck George Starbuck George Edwin Starbuck was an American poet of the neo-formalist school.-Life:... in the same competition won by his friend William Harman. |
Proper names
Some nine-letter proper nameProper name
"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"...
s remain monosyllabic when adding a tenth letter and apostrophe to form the possessive:
- Laugharne's /ˈlɑrnz/
- Scoughall's /ˈskoʊlz/
It is productive
Productivity (linguistics)
In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is...
in English to convert
Conversion (linguistics)
In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form...
a (proper) noun into an eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous verb or adjective:
- A 2007–08 promotion in France used the slogan "Do you Schweppes?", implying a past tense Schweppesed (11 letters) for the putative verb.
- Schwartzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "(re)designed in the style of Martha SchwartzMartha SchwartzMartha Schwartz, born 1950, is an American landscape architect. Her background is in the fine arts as well as landscape architecture, and her projects range from private to urban scale. She studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and graduated from the University of Michigan...
" - Schwartzed has also been used to mean "crossed swords with Justice Alan R. Schwartz"
- Schmertzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "received undue largesse from New York City through the intervention of negotiator Eric SchmertzEric SchmertzEric Joseph Schmertz was an American lawyer who specialized in labor negotiation, helping reach agreements between workers and management in many strikes and other threatened union actions in New York City, including actions by the city's taxi drivers and other municipal workers, as well as...
"
Contrived endings
In a 1970 article in Word Ways, Ralph G. Beaman convertsConversion (linguistics)
In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form...
past participles ending -ed into nouns, allowing regular plurals with -s. He lists five verbs in Webster's Third International generating 10-letter monosyllables scratcheds, screecheds, scroungeds, squelcheds, stretcheds; from the verb strength in Webster's Second International he forms the 11-letter strengtheds.
The past tense ending -ed and the archaic second person singular ending -st can be combined into -edst; for example "In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul" . While this ending is usually pronounced as a separate syllable from the verb stem, it may be abbreviated -'dst to indicate elision. Attested examples include scratch'dst and stretch'dst, each of which has one syllable spelled with ten letters plus apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeiac monosyllables may be extended without limit to represent a long drawn-out sound or utterance. For example, Yann MartelYann Martel
Yann Martel is a Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi.-Early life:Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain where his father was posted as a diplomat for the Canadian government. He was raised in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Canada...
's 1995 novel Self
Self (novel)
Self is a novel by Yann Martel. It tells the story of a traveling writer who wakes up one morning to discover that he has become a woman. It was first published by Knopf Canada in 1996.-Plot summary:...
includes 45-letter Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and 35-letter Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.