Floccinaucinihilipilification
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, floccinaucinihilipilification is the second longest word in the English language.
- Sir Walter Scott (Journal, March 8, 1826, with 'pauci' as the second element rather than 'nauci'):
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- [... I] have arrived at a flocci-pauci-nihili-pili-fication of money, and I thank Shenstone for inventing that long word.
- The comic strip Zippy the Pinhead (March 14, 1996):
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- "Do you think I may be too quick to find fault with things and people, Zippy?"
- "Yeh."
- "Th' 'floccinaucinihilipilification' process."
- "Th' what?"
- "Floccinaucinihilipilification!! It means 'the estimation of something as valueless'!"
- "You've been randomly reading th' dictionary, haven't you?"
- "Yes. That and my natural tendency toward antifloccinaucinihilipilification!!"
- Jesse Helms (1999), in reference to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty:
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- "I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT." (Helms claims he learned the word from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/07/28/farrah/
- Mike McCurry (1995), United States President Bill Clinton's press secretary:
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- "But if you -- as a practical matter of estimating the economy, the difference is not great. There's a little bit of floccinaucinihilipilification going on here." http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words11.html
- Robert A. Heinlein, in The Puppet Masters (1951):
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- "Digby was a floccinaucinihilipilificator at heart — which is an eight-dollar word meaning a joker who does not believe in anything he can't bite."
- Robert A. Heinlein, in The Number of the Beast (1980):
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- "Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix."
- "Is that a compliment?"
- "Certainly! Means you're so sharp you spot the slightest flaw."
- I kept quiet. It was possible that Zebadiah meant it as a compliment. Just barely- "Maybe I'd better check it in a dictionary."
- "By all means, dear-after you are off watch." (I dismissed the matter. Merriam Microfilm was all we had aboard and Aunt Hilda would not find that word in anything less than the O.E.D.)
- Bob Black, in "A Study In Floccinaucinihilipilification"http://www.primitivism.com/balash.htm
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- slams libertarians Murray Bookchin and Timothy Balash