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Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
An extension of sesquipedalian using a modified form of hippopotamus and Latin monstrum; the extensions almost certainly chosen with the intention of making the new construct autological.
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Examples
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Macaronics mix foreign and English words: In tempus old a hero lived/Qui loved puella deux .... le Besides subcategories of the foregoing, the book provides Lapsus Linguae, Twenty Questions, Hangman, Puns, and The Longest Word (hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian is an oddity that might be thrown in here), not to mention Lewis Carroll's Word Games.
thesuperiorbeing commented on the word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
A very long word (really, that's what it means).
January 19, 2008
mollusque commented on the word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
I saw another misspelling of hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian go scrolling by on the Wordie home page, and began wondering who coined the term. It's sometimes said to be from Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary (1974), but I've found it in The American Thesaurus of Slang (2nd ed., Berrey and van den Bark, 1953).
From the hippopotamine root, it looks like it should be spelled "hippopotamonstrosesquipedalian" or "hippopotamomonstrosesquipedalian" as Richard Lederer did in Word Wizard (2006). I'm curious if the original coiner really did form it as "hippopot-o-monstr-o-sesquipedalian".
March 24, 2008
jmjarmstrong commented on the word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
JM has been invited to address the Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian Appreciation Society and, in a word, accepted!
October 12, 2009
Gammerstang commented on the word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
Pertaining to extremely long words
January 8, 2018