Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A word of more than two and usually more than three syllables.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A word of several syllables; usually, a word of four or more syllables, words of one syllable being called monosyllables, those of two dissyllables, and those of three trisyllables.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A word of many syllables, or consisting of more syllables than three; -- words of less than four syllables being called monosyllables, dissyllables, and trisyllables.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A word with more than two syllables. Sometimes used in a more restricted sense.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a word of more than three syllables

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

poly- +‎ syllable

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Examples

  • He spoke in sentences that clocked in at a grade-school level, the speed of delivery was lugubrious, or perhaps aimed at the part of the audience that processes the occasional polysyllable rather slowly.

    Discourse.net: The Speeches 2009

  • They belong in the category because they contain polysyllable words and can be slightly harder to read and follow.

    Archive 2008-07-01 ____Maggie 2008

  • They belong in the category because they contain polysyllable words and can be slightly harder to read and follow.

    Defining YA Fiction ____Maggie 2008

  • Right alongside of this are vocabulary choices – go with the polysyllable or the Anglo-Saxon four letter version?

    2007 May « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2007

  • Right alongside of this are vocabulary choices – go with the polysyllable or the Anglo-Saxon four letter version?

    Decisions, Decisions « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2007

  • We are like that only Indian English, with its fascination for the polysyllable and the poetic, has a special flavor of...

    Archive 2008-09-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

  • Indian English, with its fascination for the polysyllable and the poetic, has a special flavor of its own as it is concocted through the transcreation of a thought process forged originally in Oriya, or Telugu, etc.

    Archive 2008-02-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

  • We are like that only Indian English, with its fascination for the polysyllable and the poetic, has a special flavor of...

    Who are the collective folks? perhaps Deshpande can tell you Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

  • Palin may be proud she can handle a polysyllable like "socialist" without screwing it up, but the rest of the world is terrified to think that she may have any input, at all, in shaping our foreign policy, and we should be, too.

    1960 Revisited? 2008

  • Indian English, with its fascination for the polysyllable and the poetic, has a special flavor of its own as it is concocted through the transcreation of a thought process forged originally in Oriya, or Telugu, etc.

    We are like that only Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

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