Antidisestablishmentarianism

Arms of the See of Canterbury, governing the Church of England, mother of the Anglican Communion.

Antidisestablishmentarianism (listen to British sample (info), American sample (info)) is a political position that originated in 19th-century Britain in opposition to proposals for the disestablishment of the Church of England, that is, to remove the Anglican Church's status as the state church of England, Ireland, and Wales.

The establishment was maintained in England, but in Ireland the Church of Ireland (Anglican) was disestablished in 1871. In Wales, four Church of England dioceses were disestablished in 1920, subsequently becoming the Church in Wales.

The question of disestablishment of the Church of England is still current, often tied with the position of the English monarch as "Supreme Governor" of the Church (see Act of Settlement 1701). Those who wish to continue the establishment of the Church of England are referred to as Antidisestablishmentarians.^[1]

Word length

The word is often referenced in English-speaking popular culture on account of its unusual length of 28 letters and 12 syllables. It is one of the longest words in the English language.^[2] It is commonly believed to be the longest word in English found in major dictionaries (www.oxforddictionary.com), excluding coined and technical terms.^[2] A slightly longer but less commonly accepted variant of the word can be found in the Duke Ellington song "You're Just an Old Antidisestablishmentarianismist"^[3] although the correct construction of that word would be "antidisestablishmentarianist" (without the "ism") or "antidisestablishmentarian".

The word construction is as follows (the numbers succeeding the word refer to the number of letters in the word):

establish (9)

to set up, put in place, or institute (originally from the Latin stare, to stand)

dis-establish (12)

to end the established status of a body, in particular a church, given such status by law, such as the Church of England

disestablish-ment (16)

the separation of church and state (specifically in this context it is the political movement of the 1860s in Britain)

anti-disestablishment (20)

opposition to disestablishment

antidisestablishment-ary (23)

of or pertaining to opposition to disestablishment

antidisestablishmentari-an (25)

an opponent of disestablishment

antidisestablishmentarian-ism (28)

the movement or ideology that opposes disestablishment

J.E. Littlewood pointed out that the word is all "form" apart from the Latin stem st.^[4]

Look up antidisestablishmentarianism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

See also

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References

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