List of the longest English words with one syllable

This is a list of candidates for the longest English word of one syllable, i.e. monosyllables with the most letters. A list of 9,123 English monosyllables published in 1957 includes three ten-letter words: scraunched, scroonched, and squirreled. Guinness World Records lists scraunched and strengthed. Other sources include words as long or longer. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, dialect, proper noun, loanword, or nonce word.

List

word	pronunciation	letters	source	notes
schtroumpfed	/ˈʃtruːmpft/	12	Eco	The original French name for smurf is schtroumpf, and is used as an all-purpose noun and verb by Smurfs and in imitation of them. The form schtroumpfed is used in Alistair McEwen's English translation of an essay by Umberto Eco: "Let us suppose that an English speaker of average culture hears a Schtroumpf poet reciting I schtroumpfed lonely as a schtroumpf." However, this is intended to represent the Schtroumpf language rather than English.
squirrelled	/ˈskwɜːrld/	11	LPD; MWOD	compressed American pronunciation of a word which in British RP always has two syllables /ˈskwɪrəld/. The monosyllabic pronunciation rhymes with world, curled. In the United States the given spelling is a variant of the more usual squirreled: see -led and -lled spellings.
broughammed	/ˈbruːmd/	11	Sc.Am.	meaning "travelled by brougham", by analogy with bussed, biked, carted etc. Rhymes with fumed, zoomed. Suggested by poet William Harmon in a competition to find the longest monosyllable.
schmaltzed	/ˈʃmɔːltst/, /ˈʃmɒltst/, /ˈʃmæltst/	10	OED	meaning "imparted a sentimental atmosphere to" e.g. of music; with a 1969 attestation for the past tense.
squirreled	/ˈskwɜːrld/	10	LPD; MWOD; Moser	the more usual American spelling of squirrelled.
scrootched	/ˈskruːtʃt/	10	AHD	variant of scrooched, meaning "crouched"
scroonched	/ˈskrʊnʃt/	10	W3NID; Moser	variant of scrunched, meaning "squeezed".
scraunched	/ˈskrɔːnʃt/	10	W3NID; Moser	a "chiefly dialect" word, meaning "crunched".
broughamed	/ˈbruːmd/	10	Shaw	a variant of broughammed, used by George Bernard Shaw in a piece of journalism.
strengthed	/ˈstrɛŋθt/	10	OED	an obsolete verb meaning "strengthen", "force", and "summon one's strength". The latest citation is 1614 (1479 for strengthed), at which time the Early Modern English pronunciation would have been disyllabic.
schwartzed	/ˈʃwɔːrtst/	10		meaning "responded 'Schwartz' to a player without making eye-contact" in the game Zoom Schwartz Profigliano.
schnappsed	/ˈʃnæpst/	10	Sc.Am.	meaning "drank schnapps"; proposed by poet George Starbuck in the same competition won by his friend William Harmon.

Proper names

Some nine-letter proper names remain monosyllabic when adding a tenth letter and apostrophe to form the possessive:

• Laugharne's /ˈlɑːrnz/
• Scoughall's /ˈskoʊlz/

It is productive in English to convert a (proper) noun into an eponymous verb or adjective:

• A 2007–08 promotion in France used the slogan "Do you Schweppes?", implying a past tense Schweppesed (11 letters) for the putative verb.
• Schwartzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "(re)designed in the style of Martha Schwartz"
• Schwartzed has also been used to mean "crossed swords with Justice Alan R. Schwartz"
• Schmertzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "received undue largesse from New York City through the intervention of negotiator Eric Schmertz"

Contrived endings

In a 1970 article in Word Ways, Ralph G. Beaman converts past participles ending -ed into nouns, allowing regular plurals with -s. He lists five verbs in Webster's Third International generating 10-letter monosyllables scratcheds, screecheds, scroungeds, squelcheds, stretcheds; from the verb strength in Webster's Second International he forms the 11-letter strengtheds.

The past tense ending -ed and the archaic second person singular ending -st can be combined into -edst; for example "In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul" (Psalms 138:3). While this ending is usually pronounced as a separate syllable from the verb stem, it may be abbreviated -'dst to indicate elision. Attested examples include scratch'dst and stretch'dst, each of which has one syllable spelled with ten letters plus apostrophe.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeiac monosyllables may be extended without limit to represent a long drawn-out sound or utterance. For example, Yann Martel's 1995 novel Self includes a 45-letter Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and a 35-letter Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

See also

• Longest word in English

External links

• askoxford.com: What is the longest one-syllable English word?
• rec-puzzles.org: What words have an exceptional number of letters per syllable?
• The Aargh Page and The Hmmm Page give analyses of the frequency of repetitions of letters in two monosyllablic onomatopoeias

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