Floccinaucinihilipilification
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Floccinaucinihilipilification (IPA: /flɒksɪnɔːsɪnaɪ(h)ɪlɪpɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, British English 
listen (help·info) American English listen (help·info); variously floccipaucinihilipilification) is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the action or habit of estimating as worthless". Sometimes written with hyphens, it is frequently cited as one of the longest words in the English language. It has even spawned the back formations floccinaucical ("inconsiderable, trifling") and floccinaucity ("a matter of small consequence").[1]
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[edit] Etymology
The word is derived from a list of Latin words found in a section of the Eton Latin Grammar.[1] The word is said to have been invented as an erudite joke by a student of Eton College, who found in his textbook four ways of saying "don't care" and combined them:[citation needed]
- flocci facere (from floccus, -i a wisp or piece of wool)
- nauci facere (from naucum, -i a trifle)
- nihili facere (from nihilum, -i nothing; something valueless (lit. "not even a thread" from ni+hilum)) Example being: "nihilism"
- pili facere (from pilus, -i a hair; a bit or a whit; something small and insignificant)
[edit] Usage
The first known written instance of floccinaucinihilipilification, as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, is in 1741, in a published letter by William Shenstone. The quotation is: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money." Other notable users of the word have included Robert Southey (in the Quarterly Review 14:334, 1816), and Walter Scott (Journal 18, 1829). Scott, however, replaced the "nauci" component with "pauci".[1]
The feminine noun construction, floccinaucinihilipilificatrix, can be found in the Robert Heinlein novel The Number of the Beast.
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