Floccinaucinihilipilification listen (help·info) (American English: listen (help·info)) (or variously floccipaucinihilipilification) is "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecationIn computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation is used to indicate discouragement of usage of a particular software feature, usually because it has been superseded by a newer/better version. The deprecated feature still works in the current version of the software, but it may raise error messages or warnings recommending an alternative practice. Features ...deprecation".
With 29 letters, it is the longest non-technical wordThe longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes an English word. English allows new words to be formed by construction; long words are coined; place names may be considered words; technical terms may be arbitrarily long. Length can be in terms of orthography and number of written letters or phonology and the number of phonemes.longest non-technical word in the first edition of the Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most successful dictionary of the English language, (not to be confused with the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford Dictionary of English, of 1998.) As of 30 November 2005 OED included about 301,100 main entries, comprising ...Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which presents it as "enumerated in a well-known rule from the Eton Latin Grammar". The OED dates its first use in literature at 1741 in William ShenstoneWilliam Shenstone (November 13, 1714 – February 11, 1763) was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes.William Shenstone's Works in Prose and Verse: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money".
Though the OED gives no specifics on its derivationNo quick definition available. derivation, the word is said to have been invented as an eruditeThe word erudition came into Middle English from Latin. A scholar is erudite (Latin eruditus) when instruction and reading followed by digestion and contemplation have effaced all rudeness ("e- (ex-) + rudis"), that is to say smoothed away all raw, untrained incivility. Erudition is the depth, polish and breadth that is applied to education from further readings and understanding of literary works. The Latin word educare means to "lead out" from ...erudite joke by a student of Eton CollegeThe King's College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor, commonly known as Eton College or just Eton, is a public school (privately funded and independent) for boys, founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. It is located in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor in England, situated north of Windsor Castle, and is one of the original nine English public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. The school's Head Master, Anthony ...Eton College, who, upon consulting a LatinLatin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. It gained wide currency, especially in Europe, as the formal language of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, and, after Rome's conversion to Christianity, of the Roman Catholic Church. Principally ...Latin textbook, found four words connoting 'nothing' or 'worthless', combined them, adding compound suffixes -i-, and -fication (as in e.g. glor-i-fication, from facio, "to make or do")
- floccus, -i a wisp or piece of wool, used idiomaticallyAn idiom is an expression (i.e., term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use. In linguistics, idioms are widely assumed to be figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality; however, some debate has recently arisen on ...idiomatically as flocci non facio ("I don't give a hoot")
- naucum, -i a trifle
- nihil, -is nothing; something valueless (lit. "not even a thread" from ni+hilum)
- pilus, -i a hair; a bit or a whit; something small and insignificant
It is often spelled with hyphens, and has even spawned the back formationsIn etymology, back-formation refers to the process of creating a new word by reinterpreting or re-bracketing an earlier word as a derivation and removing apparent affixes. More generally, it includes reconstructing an "original" form from any kind of derived form (including abbreviations or inflected forms). The resulting neologism is called a back-formation. The ...back formations floccinaucical (inconsiderable or trifling) and floccinaucity (the essence or quality of being of small importance). The OED appears to have overlooked floccinaucinihilipilificatious, which has one letter more than the nominal form, and means "small" or "insignificant." When the common English nominal suffix -ness is then added to the above adjective, a thirty-four letter noun floccinaucinihilipilificatiousness is formed, which means "smallness" or "insignificance."
