floccinaucinihilipilification

Latin floccus (“a wisp”) +‎ naucum (“a trifle”) +‎ nihilum (“nothing”) +‎ pilus (“a hair”) + -fication

A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College, combining a number of roughly synonymous Latin stems. The word was inspired by a line in the Eton Latin Grammar that gave a rule for certain verbs that take some words irregularly in the genitive case: “Flocci, nauci, nihili, pili, assis, huius, teruncii, his verbis, aestimo, pendo, facio, peculiariter adduntur”.[1] This translates loosely to: “The words floccus, naucus, nihilum, pilus, assis (“penny”), hic (“this”) and teruncius (“farthing”) are irregularly used with the genitive case with these verbs: aestimo (“to appraise value”), pendo (“to weigh, to pay”), facio (“to make”)”.

• IPA^(key): /ˌflɒksɪˌnɔːsɪˌnaɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, /ˌflɒksiˌnɒsiˌnɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/

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floccinaucinihilipilification (uncountable)

1. (often humorous) The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value or being worthless.
   • 1741, William Shenstone, Letters:

     I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money.

   • 1970, Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander:

     There is a systematic flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification of all other aspects of existence that angers me.

   • 2000, Raymond J. Chambers, Logic, Law, and Ethics‎:

     Floccinaucinihilipilification in accounting - does it matter?

   • 2006, Sol Steinmetz, The life of language‎:

     They must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccinaucinihilipilification of all that can gratify the outward man.

   • 2009, Judith Orloff, Emotional Freedom‎:

     Some people with low self-esteem are prone to floccinaucinihilipilification, the habit of deeming everything worthless.

   • 2011, Bruce Ratner, Statistical and Machine-Learning Data Mining‎:

     The quasi statistician would doubtlessly not know how to check this supposition, thus rendering the interpretation of the mean profit as floccinaucinihilipilification.

   • 2012, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Hansard‎:

     Let me indulge in the floccinaucinihilipilification of EU judges and quote from the book of Amos about them.

Often cited as the longest non-technical word in the English language, being one letter longer than the commonly cited antidisestablishmentarianism. It is the longest word ever recorded by Hansard after Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg used the word in Parliament on 21st February 2012.[2]

• floccinaucinihilipilificate
• floccinaucinihilipilificatory
• floccinaucinihilipilificatious
• floccinaucinihilipilificatiousness

• antidisestablishmentarianism
• antidisestablishmentarianismists
• dacryocystorhinostomy
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
• supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

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