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The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters). Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary does not contain antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters), as the editors found no widespread, sustained usage of the word in its original meaning. The longest word in that dictionary is electroencephalographically (27 ...
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
The 45-letter word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest English word that appears in a major dictionary. [38] [39] Originally coined to become a candidate for the longest word in English, the term eventually developed some independent use in medicine. [40] It is referred to as "P45" by researchers. [41]
The American Heritage, [7] Chambers, [8] and Oxford English [9] similarly exclude antidisestablishmentarianism, but keep smaller variations. Dictionaries that do include the word are the Cambridge Dictionary, [10] Collins English, [11] and Dictionary.com. [12]
Learning proper spelling by rote is a traditional element of elementary education, and divergence from standard spelling is often perceived as an indicator of low intelligence, illiteracy, or lower class standing. [4] Spelling tests are commonly used to assess a student's mastery of the words in the spelling lessons the student has received so ...
The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE) is a complete database of all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary and other dictionaries (including Old English), arranged by semantic field and date. In this way, the HTE arranges the whole vocabulary of English, from the earliest written records in Old English to the present, alongside dates of ...
He could trace words back in history, and deduce their unrecorded original forms, and he could follow words through time as they developed new meanings. He could revive an ancient word in a form that made sense to modern readers ( shieldmaiden ), [ 5 ] or create a completely new meaning for a forgotten word ( ent ).
As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary features entries in which the earliest ascertainable recorded sense of a word, whether current or obsolete, is presented first, and each additional sense is presented in historical order according to the date of its earliest ascertainable recorded use. [5]