Contains Silphium, a plant which was a common ingredient in the classical world, but now no one knows exactly what it was. (The leading theory is that it's a real plant that went extinct.) There's much about that world that we don't really know.
Aristophanes was such a troll. I can only recommend reading some of his plays, like The Assemblywomen (where this word is from), The Wasps, and The Clouds. They're almost 2500 years old but they've aged incredibly well both thanks to the many amazing translators that have worked on them and because the source material is also solid satire that in many cases is still relevant today.
Plato argued that The Clouds (which is sharp satire of Socrates and his school) was in part what got Socrates convicted and killed. This is obviously debatable but Aristophanes certainly didn't self-censor or mince words.
What’s mainly annoying is how this has broken HN layout. There’s some CSS for that.
It will go down in HN-history as the one exception, where it was ok to not use the page title verbatim.
I read the article and was disappointed that the full "word" got cut off, but I know that somewhere, there's a German out there who will post something even longer.
I’m German and think the idea to compound words into one should not really count as the longest / a long word. I mean yes it is but also it isn’t. Like: “ Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung” In the end it’s just slapping words together and count it as one.
Agree
Seems okay on mobile, how does it look for you?
Jfyi the title has been edited now, it was the actual word previously which was not broken and just made the page super wide on mobile.
It was fine on my iOS Safari with a small screen. It automatically hyphenated it, differently depending on orientation.
Presumably not on other browsers, though, as lots of people were complaining.
Safari on iOS 26.2 did not hyphenate it for me. I bet it has something to do with which languages are installed.
Ta!
Especially not working on mobile because the long word pushes for wider column and therefore a more zoomed out view.
`word-break: break-all;` would solve that.
I think the ingredient Silphium described in this dish (Now considered extinct) could be Sea Holly (Eryngium spp). Its highly debated as many authors think it is some extinct variety of fennel, but from the images on the coins it doesnt look like a Fennel.
Romans had very different palates from the modern west.
Could be but the central bulb as made on the coins is unlike a fennel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium , and since this imaginary recipe is a part of a comedy it is unlikely to be edible. If you look at other ingredients they can surely make someone sick.
I believe there are more descriptions of it other than rough depictions on coins
I am a native Greek speaker with a fair bit of education in Homeric, Classical, and Medieval Greek. Trying to read that word hurts…
HN cut it off at "karab" and I thought this was the generic name of some new drug.
This should have been an April Fools clue on Wheel of Fortune with Vanna White just about to die at the end of having to turn over all the letters.
Legend has it that someone posted the recipe years ago, but the double-whammy of the long title and the HN need to remove "How to make …" broke the site.
Learning some Attic Greek is one of those priority two goals I keep trying and failing to accomplish. Any tips you can share?
> is the longest word ever to appear in literature
Thank goodness Joyce doesn't have the record with his invented words in Finnegans Wake.
Funny, but as a speaker of Greek I never realised that it's in principle possible to basically create infinitely many, infinitely long new Greek words by stitching together word-roots and connectives, like "λόπαδ-ο τέμαχ-ο", etc.
I mean, has any linguist noticed this? The ability to (again in principle) embed infinitely many sentences is AFAIK an argument for the infinite generativity of natural language. Can the same argument be supported at the word-level also? And does anyone know whether it has?
Also, I think in German it's very common to string together words like that to form longer words. Are there more languages with that characteristic?
From what I've read, the German phenomenon isn't actually German-specific after all, and English does it too; the difference is just that English keeps the spaces when written. Like, linguists apparently consider "vending machine" to be a perfectly cromulent compound word (among other things, consider that the stress falls on "vending" instead of "machine," which wouldn't(?) happen if "vending" was being used as a bona fide standalone word). Turns out, there's not even an accepted general definition of what a "word" even is in the first place, because different languages vary so much.
Important knowledge for those suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
How to never have anyone play Hangman with you again
"Well actually..."
As the word-setter this might be an own-goal. As a word guesser, a random haphazard tactic might get you the word.
I'll Monte-Carlo my point but I have a warm bath tub waiting...
Well. It contains every letter.
The two words that struck me are this chemical compound [1] (quite artificial as a name if you ask me, but apparently considered as a word), and this perfectly real hill name [2]
Yes, the Titin example is completely ridiculous. On the one hand, the protein Titin is one of the longest sequences. However you can form a 'word' out of any protein or DNA (or other macromolecue or polymer) this way.
The key problem for me is that you would never refer to any polypeptide this way in a sentence. It would be like referring to a piece of software by concatenating its source code into one long 'word'. Meaningless.
That's not a word that's a polypeptide sequence. How and why did that get entered into Wikitionary to begin with? It doesn't belong there.
Next up will they start recording the corresponding DNA sequences as "words" that are a synonym?
Dang, you should change it to "Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon" via your admin superpowers!
I doubt that can happen because that would go over the length limit, probably it should be "The Longest Word In Literature"
as for it screwing with mobile site width, on desktop FF putting width small seems to work fine as the word seems to have soft hyphens in it? Because it splits at the window edge with a hyphen in place.
I'm mostly, and pleasantly, surprised that Firefox's hyphenation algorithm handles this reasonably.
I thought it was German and had an awful time trying to parse it. Makes so much more sense once one knows it's Greek.
Oh I come across German words bigger than that every now and then.
I wonder if this is in meter? I know Philoctetes' pain noises are.
It is.
The "context" section of this article is very interesting!
This is why I quit linguistics, Too many syllables.
antidisestablishmentarianism
supercalifragilisticexpialadocious
Well observed, sir. I’m felicitous, since, during the
course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted
categorisation of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.
I hope you will not object if I also offer my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.
Thus, I’m anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulations.
May I offer you a pendigestatery
interludicule? Anything I can do to facilitate your velocitous
extramuralisation.
Almost got skewered by Lord Byron on that episode.
Just make sure you return interfrastically.
Vincent Hana, Country Gentleman's Pig Fertiliser Gazette.
I thought this was a news site for tech, not a Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics repository
[deleted]
An I thought it was about another obscure PHP error.
Nah, just an average Java class name transliterated in Greek with single case.
I want to taste it
[deleted]
Well this certainly mucked with the width of the mobile HN site.
A css fix would prevent this.
Also make the damn upvote buttons bigger on mobile.
Hckrnews.com is a far better frontent. Implemented the long line fix, and also preserves topics that were upvoted to the top and subsequently flagged to death by bot farms or the owners.
[deleted]
I was wondering what’s wrong with the HN site on mobile today. I thought something from my other safari settings carried over thinking is this another macOS / iOS problem. Good to know this time Apple is not to blame. Interesting psychology here how easy it was for me to go there.
Have you checked out Harmonic? It's an amazing Hacker News android client!
Opera browser can render any page in word wrapping mode
It automatically hyphenates on Firefox mobile, must be a safari issue.
This is an iOS 26 regression. There are a bunch of soft hyphens in there, which is why it works on other browsers and in previous versions of iOS.
Brain figured out this title being the culprit of horizontal scroll today. Brain predicted this being the top comment in this thread. Not disappointed.
Can someone fix this? I don’t believe it is the first time
Not on Chrome or Firefox for me. So I assume you are using Safari.
The long words must continue until word wrap increases.
[dead]
[flagged]
I had ChatGPT spend a few kWh coming up with Algorithmostartupoventurecapitoopensourcolicensioprivacysecuritorustigogolokubernetocloudiosaasodistributedodatabasolatencyphoboshowhnaskhncommentopedantolongformoaillmopromptomancyethicoregulatiocontroversioburnoutikon, which apparently describes the vibe here on HN.
Fun false fact that I just invented : the Monty Python briefly considered to have Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitzweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm to mutter Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon, but John Cleese, who play the man interviewing the last descendent of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitzweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, being a fervent Latin teacher opposed the idea because he thought that was Greek nonsense.
Contains Silphium, a plant which was a common ingredient in the classical world, but now no one knows exactly what it was. (The leading theory is that it's a real plant that went extinct.) There's much about that world that we don't really know.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20170907-the-mystery-of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium
Aristophanes was such a troll. I can only recommend reading some of his plays, like The Assemblywomen (where this word is from), The Wasps, and The Clouds. They're almost 2500 years old but they've aged incredibly well both thanks to the many amazing translators that have worked on them and because the source material is also solid satire that in many cases is still relevant today.
Plato argued that The Clouds (which is sharp satire of Socrates and his school) was in part what got Socrates convicted and killed. This is obviously debatable but Aristophanes certainly didn't self-censor or mince words.
What’s mainly annoying is how this has broken HN layout. There’s some CSS for that.
It will go down in HN-history as the one exception, where it was ok to not use the page title verbatim.
I read the article and was disappointed that the full "word" got cut off, but I know that somewhere, there's a German out there who will post something even longer.
I’m German and think the idea to compound words into one should not really count as the longest / a long word. I mean yes it is but also it isn’t. Like: “ Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung” In the end it’s just slapping words together and count it as one.
Agree
Seems okay on mobile, how does it look for you?
Jfyi the title has been edited now, it was the actual word previously which was not broken and just made the page super wide on mobile.
It was fine on my iOS Safari with a small screen. It automatically hyphenated it, differently depending on orientation.
Presumably not on other browsers, though, as lots of people were complaining.
Safari on iOS 26.2 did not hyphenate it for me. I bet it has something to do with which languages are installed.
Ta!
Especially not working on mobile because the long word pushes for wider column and therefore a more zoomed out view.
`word-break: break-all;` would solve that.
I think the ingredient Silphium described in this dish (Now considered extinct) could be Sea Holly (Eryngium spp). Its highly debated as many authors think it is some extinct variety of fennel, but from the images on the coins it doesnt look like a Fennel.
Romans had very different palates from the modern west.
Or Ferula drudeana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferula_drudeana
Could be but the central bulb as made on the coins is unlike a fennel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium , and since this imaginary recipe is a part of a comedy it is unlikely to be edible. If you look at other ingredients they can surely make someone sick.
I believe there are more descriptions of it other than rough depictions on coins
I am a native Greek speaker with a fair bit of education in Homeric, Classical, and Medieval Greek. Trying to read that word hurts…
https://youtu.be/GlGKwS3E3iA?t=77m37s
No bollocks
https://youtu.be/XUQ1xIbziP0
HN cut it off at "karab" and I thought this was the generic name of some new drug.
This should have been an April Fools clue on Wheel of Fortune with Vanna White just about to die at the end of having to turn over all the letters.
Legend has it that someone posted the recipe years ago, but the double-whammy of the long title and the HN need to remove "How to make …" broke the site.
Learning some Attic Greek is one of those priority two goals I keep trying and failing to accomplish. Any tips you can share?
> is the longest word ever to appear in literature
Thank goodness Joyce doesn't have the record with his invented words in Finnegans Wake.
Funny, but as a speaker of Greek I never realised that it's in principle possible to basically create infinitely many, infinitely long new Greek words by stitching together word-roots and connectives, like "λόπαδ-ο τέμαχ-ο", etc.
I mean, has any linguist noticed this? The ability to (again in principle) embed infinitely many sentences is AFAIK an argument for the infinite generativity of natural language. Can the same argument be supported at the word-level also? And does anyone know whether it has?
Also, I think in German it's very common to string together words like that to form longer words. Are there more languages with that characteristic?
From what I've read, the German phenomenon isn't actually German-specific after all, and English does it too; the difference is just that English keeps the spaces when written. Like, linguists apparently consider "vending machine" to be a perfectly cromulent compound word (among other things, consider that the stress falls on "vending" instead of "machine," which wouldn't(?) happen if "vending" was being used as a bona fide standalone word). Turns out, there's not even an accepted general definition of what a "word" even is in the first place, because different languages vary so much.
A slightly more thorough discussion from an actual linguist: https://youtu.be/tfnANe2YUwM?si=LAxriH-RuqmUgrxl.
There are quite a few agglutinative languages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language
Important knowledge for those suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
How to never have anyone play Hangman with you again
"Well actually..."
As the word-setter this might be an own-goal. As a word guesser, a random haphazard tactic might get you the word.
I'll Monte-Carlo my point but I have a warm bath tub waiting...
Well. It contains every letter.
The two words that struck me are this chemical compound [1] (quite artificial as a name if you ask me, but apparently considered as a word), and this perfectly real hill name [2]
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Protologisms/Long_wo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangi%C2%ADhangako...
Yes, the Titin example is completely ridiculous. On the one hand, the protein Titin is one of the longest sequences. However you can form a 'word' out of any protein or DNA (or other macromolecue or polymer) this way.
The key problem for me is that you would never refer to any polypeptide this way in a sentence. It would be like referring to a piece of software by concatenating its source code into one long 'word'. Meaningless.
That's not a word that's a polypeptide sequence. How and why did that get entered into Wikitionary to begin with? It doesn't belong there.
Next up will they start recording the corresponding DNA sequences as "words" that are a synonym?
Dang, you should change it to "Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon" via your admin superpowers!
I doubt that can happen because that would go over the length limit, probably it should be "The Longest Word In Literature"
as for it screwing with mobile site width, on desktop FF putting width small seems to work fine as the word seems to have soft hyphens in it? Because it splits at the window edge with a hyphen in place.
AKA L181n.
Reminds me of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico...
These too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_place_names
I'm mostly, and pleasantly, surprised that Firefox's hyphenation algorithm handles this reasonably.
I thought it was German and had an awful time trying to parse it. Makes so much more sense once one knows it's Greek.
Oh I come across German words bigger than that every now and then.
I wonder if this is in meter? I know Philoctetes' pain noises are.
It is.
The "context" section of this article is very interesting!
This is why I quit linguistics, Too many syllables.
antidisestablishmentarianism
supercalifragilisticexpialadocious
Well observed, sir. I’m felicitous, since, during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.
I hope you will not object if I also offer my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.
Thus, I’m anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulations.
May I offer you a pendigestatery interludicule? Anything I can do to facilitate your velocitous extramuralisation.
Almost got skewered by Lord Byron on that episode.
Just make sure you return interfrastically.
Vincent Hana, Country Gentleman's Pig Fertiliser Gazette.
Monty Python has its own version. https://montypython.fandom.com/wiki/Johann_Gambolputty
Is antidisestablishmentarianism supercalifragilisticexpialadocious?
Also this may be a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack :) well back in the day
I thought this was a news site for tech, not a Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics repository
An I thought it was about another obscure PHP error.
Nah, just an average Java class name transliterated in Greek with single case.
I want to taste it
Well this certainly mucked with the width of the mobile HN site.
A css fix would prevent this.
Also make the damn upvote buttons bigger on mobile.
Hckrnews.com is a far better frontent. Implemented the long line fix, and also preserves topics that were upvoted to the top and subsequently flagged to death by bot farms or the owners.
I was wondering what’s wrong with the HN site on mobile today. I thought something from my other safari settings carried over thinking is this another macOS / iOS problem. Good to know this time Apple is not to blame. Interesting psychology here how easy it was for me to go there.
Have you checked out Harmonic? It's an amazing Hacker News android client!
Opera browser can render any page in word wrapping mode
It automatically hyphenates on Firefox mobile, must be a safari issue.
This is an iOS 26 regression. There are a bunch of soft hyphens in there, which is why it works on other browsers and in previous versions of iOS.
Brain figured out this title being the culprit of horizontal scroll today. Brain predicted this being the top comment in this thread. Not disappointed.
Can someone fix this? I don’t believe it is the first time
Not on Chrome or Firefox for me. So I assume you are using Safari.
The long words must continue until word wrap increases.
[dead]
[flagged]
I had ChatGPT spend a few kWh coming up with Algorithmostartupoventurecapitoopensourcolicensioprivacysecuritorustigogolokubernetocloudiosaasodistributedodatabasolatencyphoboshowhnaskhncommentopedantolongformoaillmopromptomancyethicoregulatiocontroversioburnoutikon, which apparently describes the vibe here on HN.
Fun false fact that I just invented : the Monty Python briefly considered to have Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitzweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm to mutter Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon, but John Cleese, who play the man interviewing the last descendent of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitzweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, being a fervent Latin teacher opposed the idea because he thought that was Greek nonsense.