List of the longest English words with one syllable explained

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.^[1] Guinness World Records lists scraunched and strengthed.^[2] Other sources include words as long or longer. Some candidates are questionable on grounds of spelling, pronunciation, or status as obsolete, nonstandard, proper noun, loanword, or nonce word. Thus, the definition of longest English word with one syllable is somewhat subjective, and there is no single unambiguously correct answer.

List

word	pronunciation	letters	source	notes
broughammed		11	Sc.Am.^[3]	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.
squirrelled		11	LPD;^[4] MWOD^[5]	Compressed American pronunciation of a word which in British RP always has two syllables pronounced as //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.
broughamed		10	Shaw^[6]	A variant of broughammed, used by George Bernard Shaw in a piece of journalism.
schmaltzed	,,	10	OED^[7]	Meaning "imparted a sentimental atmosphere to" e.g. of music; with a 1969 attestation for the past tense.
schnappsed		10	Sc.Am.	Meaning "drank schnapps"; proposed by poet George Starbuck in the same competition won by his friend William Harmon.
schwartzed		10	^[8]	Meaning "responded 'Schwartz' to a player without making eye-contact" in the game Zoom Schwartz Profigliano.
scraunched		10	W3NID; Moser	A "chiefly dialect" word, meaning "crunched".
scroonched		10	W3NID;^[9] Moser	A variant of scrunched, meaning "squeezed".
scrootched		10	AHD^[10]	A variant of scrooched, meaning "crouched".
squirreled		10	LPD; MWOD; Moser	The more usual American spelling of squirrelled.
strengthed		10	OED^[11]	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.

Proper names

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

• Laugharne's ^[4]
• Scoughall's ^[12]

In his short story, "Strychnine in the Soup", P. G. Wodehouse had a character whose surname was "Mapledurham", pronounced "Mum". This is eleven letters, while "Mapledurham's" is twelve.

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.^[13]
• Schwartzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "(re)designed in the style of Martha Schwartz"^[14]
• Schwartzed has also been used to mean "crossed swords with Justice Alan R. Schwartz"^[15]
• Schmertzed (10 letters) has been used to mean "received undue largesse from New York City through the intervention of negotiator Eric Schmertz"^[16]

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.^[17]

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" (138:3 KJV). 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^[18] and stretch'dst,^[19] each of which has one syllable spelled with ten letters plus apostrophe.

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?

Notes and References

1. One-syllable words . Technical report . 53 . Columbus, Ohio . Ohio State University Research Foundation . Moser . Henry M. . John J. . Dreher . Herbert J. . Oyer . June 1957 . 878346994.

   cited inPMC . Review: English monosyllables . . Albert Ross Eckler . Indianapolis . 1978 . 11–12 . 118 . A. Ross Eckler, Jr. .

2. Web site: Longest monosyllabic English words. Guinness World Records. 10 February 2014.
3. Martin . Gardner . Martin Gardner . 240 . 4 . April 1979 . . Mathematical games . 18 . 10.1038/scientificamerican0579-18 . 1979SciAm.240e..18G .
4. Book: Wells, John C. . Longman Pronunciation Dictionary . 2nd . John C. Wells . 2000 . . 978-0-582-36467-7 .
5. Spelling: Web site: ²squirrel . 2009-01-14 . Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary .
   Pronunciation: Web site: ¹squirrel . 2009-01-14 . Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary .
   
6. Book: Shaw, George Bernard . Our Theatres in the Nineties . George Bernard Shaw . 1932 . Constable and Company . 205 . . ...horsed and broughamed, painted and decorated, furnished and upholstered... . 1-4067-4302-X.
7. Book: . 2nd . 1989 . schmaltz, v. .
8. Book: Cullen, Ruth . Illustrated by Kerren Barbas . The Little Black Book of Party Games: The Essential Guide to Throwing the Best Bashes . Peter Pauper Press . 2006 . 14 . 1-59359-919-6 . If the first person has been schwartzed, he can either look at a new person and say "Zoom," or send it right back to the second person by saying "Pifigiano".
9. Book: . Merriam-Webster . 1966 . 0-7135-1038-2 .
10. Book: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . scrooch . http://www.bartleby.com/61/29/S0172900.html . 2000 . Boston . 0-395-82517-2 . 4th . . 2009-01-14 . Joseph P. Pickett . et al. . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070824200546/http://www.bartleby.com/61/21/D0422100.html . 2007-08-24 .
11. Book: . 2nd . 1989 . strength, v. .
12. Web site: Scoughall . 2007 . Scripture Union Holidays . 2009-01-15 . Scoughall (pronounced “skole”) is in East Lothian, not far from North Berwick. . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081011142108/http://www.suholidays.org.uk/sites/scoughall.htm . 2008-10-11 .
13. Web site: Do you Schweppes . December 2007 . Orangina Schweppes . fr . 2009-07-06 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071031222718/http://www.doyouschweppes.com/ . 2007-10-31 .
14. Web site: Landscapes of the mind . Diesenhouse . Susan . June 26, 2004 . . archinect . 2009-01-15 . So distinctive is her style that her name has become a Euro design verb, as in Barclays at Canary Wharf is being 'Schwartzed' ..
15. Mandel. Roberta G. . Spring 2005 . The End of an Era at the Third District Court of Appeal: The Retirement of Judge Robert L. Shevin, Judge Mario P. Goderich and Chief Judge Alan R. Schwartz . The Record . Florida Bar, Appellate Section . Tallahassee . XI . 1 . 8 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060626225034/http://www.flabarappellate.org/pdf/App-0505.pdf#page=8 . 26 June 2006 . PDF . 2009-01-14 . there is no other jurist who has inspired the formation of a new terminology:“to be Schwartzed” or “to get Schwartzed” or “passing the Schwartz test.” .
16. News: Negotiator's Quiet Style Elicits Loud Protest . Barbanel . Josh . October 23, 1990 . . 2009-01-15 . "I have now turned Schmertz into a verb and a noun," the former Mayor said. "If you have been abused, we say you have been Schmertzed. If you get an unwarranted and undeserved payment from the City of New York, you say, 'Thank you Mr. Mayor, for the Schmertz.' ".
17. Beaman . Ralph G. . 1970 . Syllabilities . . 4 . 79 . 23 June 2010.
18. Book: Woolbert, Charles Henry . 1922 . Better Speech: A Textbook of Speech Training for Secondary Schools . 103. New York, Chicago, Harcourt, Brace and company .
19. Book: Shoemaker, Rachel Walter Hinkle . 1898 . Advanced elocution . 129 . Granger Book Company . 0-89609-169-4 .