List of the longest English words with one syllable

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Template:Short description Template:EngvarB This is a list of candidates for the 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.[1] Guinness World Records lists scraunched and strengthed.[2] Other sources include words as long or longer. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, nonstandard, proper noun, loanword, or nonce word. Thus, the definition of longest English word with one syllable is somewhat subjective, and there is no single unambiguously correct answer.

List

word pronunciation letters source notes
broughammed Template:IPAc-en 11 Sc.Am.[3] Meaning "travelled by brougham", by analogy with bussed, biked, carted etc. Rhymes with fumed, zoomed. Suggested by poet William Harmon in a competition to find the longest monosyllable.
squirrelled Template:IPAc-en 11 LPD;[4] MWOD[5] Compressed American pronunciation of a word which in British RP always has two syllables Script error: No such module "IPA".. The monosyllabic pronunciation rhymes with world, curled. In the United States, the given spelling is a variant of the more usual squirreled: see -led and -lled spellings.
broughamed Template:IPAc-en 10 Shaw[6] A variant of broughammed, used by George Bernard Shaw in a piece of journalism.
schmaltzed Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en 10 OED[7] Meaning "imparted a sentimental atmosphere to" e.g. of music; with a 1969 attestation for the past tense.
schnappsed Template:IPAc-en 10 Sc.Am.[3] Meaning "drank schnapps"; proposed by poet George Starbuck in the same competition won by his friend William Harmon.
schwartzed Template:IPAc-en 10 [8] Meaning "responded 'Schwartz' to a player without making eye-contact" in the game Zoom Schwartz Profigliano.
scraunched Template:IPAc-en 10 W3NID;[9] Moser[1] A "chiefly dialect" word, meaning "crunched".
scroonched Template:IPAc-en 10 W3NID;[9] Moser[1] A variant of scrunched, meaning "squeezed".
scrootched Template:IPAc-en 10 AHD[10] A variant of scrooched, meaning "crouched".
squirreled Template:IPAc-en 10 LPD;[4] MWOD;[5] Moser[1] The more usual American spelling of squirrelled.
strengthed Template:IPAc-en 10 OED[11] 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 pronunciation would have been disyllabic.

Proper names

Some nine-letter proper names remain monosyllabic when adding a tenth letter and apostrophe to form the possessive:

In his short story, "Strychnine in the Soup", P. G. Wodehouse had a character whose surname was "Mapledurham", pronounced "Mum". This is eleven letters, while "Mapledurham's" is twelve.

It is productive in English to convert a (proper) noun into an eponymous 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.[13]
  • Schwartzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "(re)designed in the style of Martha Schwartz"[14]
  • Schwartzed has also been used to mean "crossed swords with Justice Alan R. Schwartz"[15]
  • Schmertzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "received undue largesse from New York City through the intervention of negotiator Eric Schmertz"[16]

Contrived endings

In a 1970 article in Word Ways, Ralph G. Beaman converts 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.[17]

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" (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".). 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[18] and stretch'dst,[19] each of which has one syllable spelled with ten letters plus apostrophe.

See also

References

Template:Reflist

External links

  1. ↑ a b c d Template:Cite report; cited in Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ a b Spelling: Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
    Pronunciation: Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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