Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Pronunciation
The Oxford English Dictionary Edition- enPR: no͞o-män'ō-ŭl-trə-mī-krə-skäpʹĭk-sĭl'ē-kō-väl-kā-nō-kō-nē-ōʹsĭs, IPA: en, /nuˌmɑ.noʊ.ʌl.tɹə.maɪ.kɹoʊˈskɑ.pɪkˌsɪ.lɪ.koʊ.vɑl.keɪ.noʊ.koʊ.niˈoʊ.sɪs/;
- Hyphenation: en + pneu + mo + no + ul + tra + mi + cro + sco + pic + si + li + co + vol + ca + no + co + ni + o + sis
Alternative forms
Origin
Coined by Everett K Smith, President of the National Puzzlers' League, at their convention in 1935 as a deliberately long word. From
|ultra-
|microscopic|silico-|volcano|coniosis
}, as an extension of the medical term pneumonoconiosis.
Full definition of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Noun
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
(uncountable)- (nonce) A disease of the lungs, allegedly caused by inhaling microscopic silicate particles originating from the eruption of a volcano.
- 1980, Lorin E. Kerr, Black Lung, Call it miner's asthma, silicosis, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung—they are all dust diseases with the same symptoms.
- 1998-08-27, Smokey, Lament for a Lung Disease, I say that it must be the silica dust
That we breathed through our mouths and our noses
That brought pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. - 2002-12-18T04:19:52, Pod, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, It's either pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, or a bad cough.
- 2011-04-28, Kurt D. Stradtman, Am I the Person My Mother Warned Me About?: A Four-year College Experience ... Only the Good Parts, I still can't watch House M.D. and not have my mind wonder... Even I can fear of having Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis after watching it.
- 31 July 2017, Boy, 16, uses 'longest word' in Parliament, Regarding the lack of funding and attention do you agree that there should be parity of esteem between mental conditions such as body dysmorphia and physical conditions such as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
Usage notes
This word was invented purely to be a contender for the title of the longest word in the English language, comprising forty-five letters and nineteen syllables. The word is not in official medical usage, and textbooks refer to this disease as pneumonoconiosis, pneumoconiosis, or silicosis.
Cited as the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary, the dictionary lists it as “a factitious word alleged to mean ‘a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silica dust usually found in volcanos’ but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long word”.