Language/Italian/Vocabulary/longest-word
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Ciao! Italian learners,
The longest Italian word is Precipitevolissimevolmente. It is a 26-letter-long adverb.
It means "in a way like someone acts very hastily".
It is formed by subsequent addition of postfixes to the original root:
- precipitevole: "hasty"
- precipitevolissimo: "very hasty"
- precipitevolissimevole: "[of someone/something] that acts very hastily",
- precipitevolissimevolmente: "in a way like someone/something that acts very hastily"
The word is never used in every-day language but it is an official part of Italian language.
Other words can be created with a similar (and grammatically correct) mechanism starting from a longer root, winding up with a longer word.
Some examples are:
- sovramagnificentissimamente (cited by Dante Alighieri in De vulgari eloquentia), 27 letters, "in a way that is more than magnificent by far" (archaic);
- incontrovertibilissimamente, 27 letters, "in a way that is very difficult to falsify";
- particolareggiatissimamente, 27 letters, "in an extremely detailed way";
- anticostituzionalissimamente, 28 letters, "in a way that strongly violates the constitution".