floccinaucinihilipilification

Latin floccus (“a wisp”) +‎ naucum (“a trifle”) +‎ nihilum (“nothing”) +‎ pilus (“a hair”) + -fication

A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College,[1] combining a number of Latin word stems. The word was inspired by a line present in various editions of William Lily's (c. 1468–1522) Latin grammars published around the 17th–19th centuries (including the Eton Latin Grammar),[2][3][4] in which some nouns commonly used in the genitive case with some verbs like pendo and facio are listed, which express evaluating something as worthless or as previously mentioned:

"Flócci of a lock of wool, náuci of a nut-shell, níhili of nóthing, píli of a hair, ássis of a pénny, hújus of this, terúncii of a fárthing, addúntur are ádded, peculiáritèr pecúliarly or véry próperly vérbis to verbs æstimándi of esteéming."

• IPA^(key): /ˌflɒksɪˌnɔːsɪˌnaɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, /ˌflɒksiˌnɒsiˌnɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: flocci‧nauci‧ni‧hili‧pili‧fi‧ca‧tion

floccinaucinihilipilification (uncountable)

1. (often humorous) The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value or being worthless.
   • 1741, William Shenstone, Letters:

     I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money.

   • 1970, Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander:

     There is a systematic flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification of all other aspects of existence that angers me.

   • 2000, Raymond J. Chambers, Logic, Law, and Ethics‎:

     Floccinaucinihilipilification in accounting - does it matter?

   • 2006, Sol Steinmetz, The life of language‎:

     They must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccinaucinihilipilification of all that can gratify the outward man.

   • 2009, Judith Orloff, Emotional Freedom‎:

     Some people with low self-esteem are prone to floccinaucinihilipilification, the habit of deeming everything worthless.

   • 2011, Bruce Ratner, Statistical and Machine-Learning Data Mining‎:

     The quasi statistician would doubtlessly not know how to check this supposition, thus rendering the interpretation of the mean profit as floccinaucinihilipilification.

   • 2012 February 21, Jacob Rees-Mogg, parliamentary debates‎, column 787:

     Let me indulge in the floccinaucinihilipilification of EU judges and quote from the book of Amos about them.

• Often cited as the longest non-technical word in the English language, being one letter longer than the well-known antidisestablishmentarianism. It was the longest word ever recorded in Parliament after Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg used it in a 2012 debate, until the record was broken in 2017 by Michael Bryan with the word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.[5]

• floccinaucinihilipilification on Wikiquote.Wikiquote