LBY3
The continuing adventures of Beau Yarbrough

That’s easy for you to say

Tuesday, June 6, 2006, 0:35
Section: Arts & Entertainment

From the Word A Day mailing list:

honorificabilitudinity (ON-uh-rif-i-kay-bi-li-too-DIN-i-tee, -tyoo-) noun

Honorableness.

[From Medieval Latin honorificabilitudinitas, from Latin honor.]

Another form of this, honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters), is the longest word Shakespeare ever used. It comes out of the mouth of Costard, the clown, in Love’s Labour’s Lost:

“I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon.”

Wow. I’ve got to find a way to use that word sometime in my fiction.


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