Floccinaucinihilipilification Dictionary.com 
listen? (American English: listen?) (or variously floccipaucinihilipilification) is "the act or habit of estimating or
describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation".
With 29 letters, it is the longest non-technical word in the first edition of
the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which presents it as "enumerated
in a well-known rule from the Eton Latin Grammar". The OED dates its first use in literature at 1741 in William Shenstone's Works in Prose and Verse: "I loved him for nothing so much as his
flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money".
Though the OED gives no specifics on its derivation, the word is said to
have been invented as an erudite joke by a student of Eton
College, who, upon consulting a Latin textbook, found four words connoting 'nothing' or
'worthless', combined them, adding compound suffixes -i-, and -fication (as in e.g. glor-i-fication, from facio, "to make or do")
- floccus, -i a wisp or piece of wool, used idiomatically as flocci non
facio ("I don't give a hoot")
- naucum, -i a trifle
- nihil, -is nothing; something valueless (lit. "not even a thread" from ni+hilum)
- pilus, -i a hair; a bit or a whit; something small and insignificant
It is often spelled with hyphens, and has even spawned the back formations
floccinaucical (inconsiderable or trifling) and floccinaucity (the essence or quality of being of small
importance). The OED appears to have overlooked floccinaucinihilipilificatious, which has one letter more than the
nominal form, and means "small" or "insignificant." When the common English nominal suffix -ness is then added to the
above adjective, a thirty-four letter noun floccinaucinihilipilificatiousness is formed, which means "smallness" or
"insignificance."
Pronunciation
A number of pronunciations have been suggested for this word, including the following (shown in IPA):
- /ˌflɒ.kɪˌnɒ.kɪˌnɪ.hɪ.lɪˌpɪ.lɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɒ.ksɪˌnɔːsɪˌnaɪ.ɪl.ɪˌpɪl.ɪf.ɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɒ.ksɪˌnaʊ.sɪ.nɪ.hɪ.lɪ.pɪ.lɪ.fɪ.keɪ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɑ.tʃi.ˌnaʊ.tʃi.nɪˌhɪ.liˌpɪ.li.faɪ'kæ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɑ.sɪˌnɑ.si.nə.hɪl.ə.pɪl.ə.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɒk.siˌnoʊ.siˌnaɪ.hil.i.ˌpɪl.i.fɪ.keɪ.ʃən/
- /ˌflɒ.sɪˌnɑʊ.sɪ.nɪ.hɪ.lɪ.pɪ.lɪ.fɪ.keɪ.ʃən/
Noted occurrences
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
- Alan Davies: Crikey.
- Stephen Fry: No, not crikey.
- Jo Brand: Floccinaucinihilipilification.
- Stephen Fry: He didn't invent that word, but well done for knowing it. Which
means— ?
- Jo Brand: The act of assessing something as worthless.
- Stephen Fry: Very correct.
- The word appeared in a Double Jeopardy! Round REALLY LONG WORDS clue in game #4962 of Jeopardy!, aired 2006-03-21. Alex
Trebek humorously gave up trying to pronounce the word while reading the clue. [1]
- Episode 14 of The Brak Show featured the word. After a thorough
freestyle hip-hop trouncing from a record store clerk stemming from a disagreement over
his chances at an upcoming rap contest, Brak defiantly announced that
loser was not in his vocabulary—but neither was
floccinaucinihilipilification.
- U.S. Senators Robert Byrd and Daniel Patrick
Moynihan discussed the word on the Senate floor on June 17, 1991. [2]
Senator Byrd noted that he had used the word two or three years earlier on the Senate floor. Senator Moynihan was attempting to
establish the longer variant: floccinaucinihilipilificationism.
- United States Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) proclaimed his floccinaucinihilipilification of
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in a July 1999 hearing.
Helms claimed he learned the word from fellow senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan.
- Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton's press secretary, used the word in a 1995 press briefing.[3]
- Used in the BBC quiz show Catchword as the player using the longest
word in some rounds got a bonus.
- It is the title of a 1996 recording from the Chicago-area noise music group
Panicsville released on Nihilist Records.
- On episode #6 of the first season of the Nickelodeon show, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Jennifer Mosely was knocked out
of James K. Polk's annual spelling bee because of this word.
- Robert A. Heinlein used it -- at least -- twice; once in The Puppet Masters, and once in The Number
of the Beast, where Capt. Z. John Carter used the feminine genitive form of
floccinaucinihilipilificatrix when referring to his mother-in-law, Hilda Mae
Burroughs.
- Patrick O'Brian used a hyphenated version in 1970's Master and Commander. The character Stephen Maturin said: "There is a systematic
'flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification' of all other aspects of existence that angers me".
- Adam Spencer's Book of Numbers gives an example of how to use
floccinaucinihilipilification in context:
- Fred: Hey Bill, have you heard the new Celine Dion album?
- Bill: It's absolute crap!
- Fred: Well, there's no need for floccinaucinihilipilification.
- In her book The Way They Learn, Cynthia Tobias uses
floccinaucinihilipilification as an example of how a person learns to remember, spell, and pronounce words through their learning
style (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic).
- David Myers uses the word in the eighth edition of his Psychology textbook when
he discusses the negative effects of low self-esteem:
- "Disparage yourself and you will be prone to the floccinaucinihilipilification of others" (Myers 633)
- It was used in closing credits once in a Pinky And The Brain cartoon (Warner Bros.). The word with its definition was
mixed in with the rest of the rolling credits. (Episode 13)
See also
-
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
