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What is the longest word in Spanish accepted by the Real Academia Española? What about words not officially accepted by the RAE?

¿Cuál es la palabra en español más larga aceptada por la Real Academia Española? ¿Y la palabra no oficialmente aceptada por la RAE?

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    In Mexico, it's got to be poquitititititititititititititititititititititititititito. As in, > —¿Quiere salsa? > —Sí, un poquitititititititititititititititititititititititititito.
    – Michael Wolf
    Commented Apr 1, 2012 at 14:45
  • The longest word that's part of my vocabulary is otorrinolaringólogo. (Ear, nose and throat specialist).
    – Walter Mitty
    Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 0:58
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    ♫ Supercalifragilísticoexpialidoso ♫ Aunque suene extravagante, raro, y espantoso, si se dice con soltura sonará armonioso... :p
    – Arkana
    Commented Apr 30, 2013 at 7:15
  • I wouldn't accept chemical words nor medical words, they are not typical spanish words, most people don't use them and most of the time they are not even spanish. Some other words are just artifical words, maybe correct but nobody uses them. I would take "anticonstitucionalmente"
    – skan
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 0:29

11 Answers 11

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Its difficult to give a reliable source for this, but searching in google it appears these words, for example in this page. But it's difficult to say this because there are lots of technical terms which are difficult to list, because many of them can be formed by adding a lot of prefixes.

  • Longest word:

Ciclopentanoperhidrofenantreno (30 letters) - Sterane

(31 letters in plural): Ciclopentanoperhidrofenantrenos

(wikipedia entry for it)

  • Longest accepted word by RAE

Electroencefalografista (23 letters) - An expert in Electroencephalography

in plural it even has one letter more (24 letters) as electroencefalografistas

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  • See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_Spanish
    – jrdioko
    Commented Apr 2, 2012 at 23:15
  • Actually, the longest word accepted by the RAE is contencioso-administrativo.
    – Chewie
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 14:23
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    Accepted by RAE is wrong. You mean listed in the DRAE. RAE accepts lots of words which are not present in the dictionary. For instance, RAE has no problem at all with ciclopentanoperhidrofenantreno; the DRAE does not include it because it is a technical word not used outside its technical niche, that's all.
    – Gorpik
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 8:58
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Una que es bastante cómica es

hipopotomonstrosesquipedaliofobia

que, no sin cierta ironía, significa: Miedo irracional a la pronunciación de palabras largas, científicas o poco comunes en el lenguaje coloquial.

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According to this page:

Superextraordinarísimo, (22-letters) was once listed as the word most often cited to be the longest in spanish. (It means "most superextraordinary"), however superextraordinarísimo seems arbitrary at best. For one thing, the word isn't in real use. As of this writing, a Google search shows not a single instance where the word was used on a Spanish-language Web site — except on pages listing what they called the longest Spanish words. And superextraordinarísimo has two other strikes against it: If one is going to create words by adding prefixes and suffixes, one could just as well make a 27-letter word by using the adverbial form, superextraordinarísimamente. Or one could just as easily use longer root words, ending up with words such as superespectacularísimamente ("most superspectacularly"). But again they're hypothetical words rather than ones that get legitimate use.

Also, the longest English word listed in an accepted dictionary is reported to be pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis, a type of lung disease. Conversion of the word to Spanish, which is made easy by the fact that all the roots have Spanish cognates, presumably would be neumonoultramicroscopicosiliciovolcanconiosis (45 letters), or something similar. But such words would probably be considered spurious rather than legitimate Spanish.

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  • Gee I would expect the usage of such a word to be a supremely extraordinary event. So I'm not surprised. ;)
    – Walter Mitty
    Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 11:14
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When I was a kid they kept telling us at class that "esternocleidomasteoideo" (22 letters) was the longest word in Spanish.

Of course, I can see it wasn't true :D

Just thought I should share.

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    Same thing here, but with magnetofluidohidrodinámica 26 letters).
    – Alpha
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 6:33
  • I'm way behind: otorringolatingologo
    – Claudio
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 4:52
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Tataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratataratatarabuelo beats all other answers so far...

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    That must be Adam.
    – JoulSauron
    Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 10:44
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anticonstitucionalmente = unconstitutionally (RAE)
laparosalpingooforotomía = a surgical intervention (NO RAE)

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A mi me parece que contrarevolucionariamente es mas larga(25 letras) o anticontrarevolucinariamente que cuenta con 29 letras. También anticontrarevolucionariamentísimamente (38 letras).

Ejemplo

Él se comportó antirevolucionariamentísimamente.

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  • a que viene del gobierno cubano esa palabra o de venezuela :)
    – Emilio Gort
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 2:00
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Apparently there is this 46 characters word - not accepted by RAE:

Alfadenobetaparahidroxifenilpropanoicotirosina

I also thought that "anticonstitucionalmente" was the longest one accepted by RAE, but then I went across another one that does not use the "-mente" trick and also has 23 characters (already mentioned in Javi's answer):

Electroencefalografista (link to RAE)

Interesting source: Cuáles son las palabras más largas en español (y cuales son las falsas o inventadas)

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  • Muy interesante el enlace, especialmente las palabras que son más largas que cualesquiera que aparecen en el diccionario de la RAE pero "haciendo trampa". Si es por sufijos y prefijos, supongo que la respuesta es "tiene a infinito" como en matemáticas, con la concatenación de "tatara" como la respuesta de rodrigo. Me gusta tu respuesta, por distinguir lo que acepta la RAE, lo que no, y explicar un poco las "trampas" de construir palabras largas.
    – Diego
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 13:44
  • ¡Gracias @Diego ! Me pareció interesante la pregunta e hice una búsqueda que me llevó a poner en entredicho lo que daba por sentado, es decir, que "anticonstitucionalmente" era la ganadora.
    – fedorqui
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 14:18
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Parangaricutirimicuaro que es como se "conoce" a Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro a través de algunos trabalenguas.

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  • "El pueblo de Parangaricutirimícuaro se va a desparangaricutirimicuarizar. Quien logre desparangaricutirimicuarizarlo primero será un gran desparangaricutirimicuarizador." Interesante palabro. No la más larga (ya se han aportado otras que le ganan por un par de letras), pero es muy interesante. Más que el gentilicio sea "NeoParangaricutenses". De dónde vendrá ese "neo"?
    – Diego
    Commented Oct 21, 2015 at 19:49
  • @Diego Según el articulo de la wikipedia, el pueblo fue destruido por el volcán Paricutín en 1943, y su nombre se cambio añadiendo el adjetivo "Nuevo" cuando empezó la reconstrucción del asentamiento
    – rraallvv
    Commented Oct 21, 2015 at 20:43
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Sería más o menos así:

Reconocida por la RAE:

Electroencefalografista (23 letras)

Oficiales pero añadiendo sufijos o prefijos:

Esternocleidomastoideísticamente

No oficiales:

Pentaquismiriohexaquisquiriotetracosiohexacontapentagonales

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  • Técnicamente posible, pero tendríamos problemas para usar "Esternocleidomastoideísticamente" en una frase son sentido. "Cómo lo hicieron? Pues Esternocleidomastoideísticamente". Tiene un siginificado real?
    – Diego
    Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 14:19
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Another long long spanish word, well I don't know if it's a real word but,...

Parangaricutirimicuado (22 letters)

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  • I googled it and it seems is the name of a business. Does it have a real meaning? Could you provide a link to it please? If you are not even sure if it is a real word I don't think that it should be proposed as an answer.
    – Diego
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 13:39
  • It's basically just a tongue-twister.
    – dockeryZ
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 13:49
  • But then any "invented word" would qualify to be posted as an answer here, reducing the quality of the answers provided to this question (thus, reducing a little bit the quality and usefulness of the site too).
    – Diego
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 13:56

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