Longest wOrd..

Floccinaucinihilipilification - Longest nontechnical word

With 29 letters, it is the longest non-technical word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which presents it as "enumerated in a well-known rule from the Eton Latin Grammar". The OED dates its first use in literature at 1741 in William Shenstone's Works in Prose and Verse: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money".

Though the OED gives no specifics on its derivation, the word is said to have been invented as an erudite joke by a student of Eton College, who, upon consulting a Latin textbook, found four ways of saying "don't care" ("don't give a hoot") and combined them:

flocci facere (from floccus, -i a wisp or piece of wool)
nauci facere (from naucum, -i a trifle)
nihili facere (from nihil, -i nothing; something valueless (lit. "not even a thread" from ni+hilum))
pili facere (from pilus, -i a hair; a bit or a whit; something small and insignificant)
It is often spelled with hyphens, and has even spawned the back formations floccinaucical (inconsiderable or trifling) and floccinaucity (the essence or quality of being of small importance). The OED appears to have overlooked floccinaucinihilipilificatious, which has one letter more than the nominal form, and means "small" or "insignificant." When the common English nominal suffix -ness is then added to the above adjective, a thirty-four letter noun floccinaucinihilipilificatiousness is formed, which means "smallness" or "insignificance."