Word of the Week (2)

Word of the Week

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Noun

Definition: Opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, especially the Anglican Church in 19th-century England.

Origins:  Latin ante- (against)  dis- (apart, negative) stare (stand)  -ment (suffix forming a noun) -arian (a suffix that forms a noun denoting a member of a group)  Greek -ism (suffix forming an action noun). I know that this origin is not particularly good, but I dissected the word and did my best. (It took quite a bit of googling.)

Sample Sentence: Antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest English word I know, and I am not even going to try to use it in a sentence that takes the meaning of the word into account.

There is no German equivalent of this word.

Antidisestablishmentarianism was often used as a dare when I and my younger siblings were shorter and more susceptible to that sort of thing. We would dare each other to spell it and then be quite proud of ourselves when we succeeded. (We conveniently didn't notice that it is spelled exactly the same way it is pronounced.)

I have never actually used this word for its true meaning and it is the closest I could come up with when trying to think of a nearly-useless word that everyone knows. (I don't believe in useless words, but this one comes close.)

What is the longest word (or the closest to being useless) that you can think of?

                                                   Lieder Madchen