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We searched on "longest word in the English language" and found a number of sites that deliberate over this very question. The answer really depends on what qualifies as a "word." For example, chemical names can be thousands of letters long. If you wrote out the name of a DNA molecule, it would be over 1,000,000,000 letters. But are these really words? It seems even dictionaries can't agree. "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico-volcanoconiosis" is the longest word in non-technical English dictionaries, but according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, it is a fictitious word created just to claim the title of longest. One of the longest place names is 92 letters, the name of a hill in New Zealand that is typically called just "Taumata." And for those with a sense of humor, "smiles" is considered the longest word because there is a "mile" between the first and last letters. If you think you know the longest word, join one of the lengthy online discussions. Personally, we think Red Skelton said it best -- the longest word follows the announcement, "and now a word from our sponsor."
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