He noted that most of the longest English words are not commonly used and not likely to occur in general text. In this context, “general text” means non-technical present-day text, seen by casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use an unusually long word.

According to Eckler, the longest words that are likely to be encountered in general text are “deinstitutionalization” and “counterrevolutionaries,” with 22 letters each.

(Eckler, R. Making the Alphabet Dance, p 252, 1996.)

I’d buy the logic of “counterrevolutionaries”, just about (I haven’t seen “deinstitutionalization” for a long, long time). Off the top of my head, how about “counterclockwise”?

A pitiful 16 letters, sigh…

[edit]

I just noticed that Y!A automatically truncated the words and added “…”, so you’ll have to click on the link to see them in all their glory.

meaning?

To estimate something as worthless.

Sorry – couldn’t resist. *wink*

Follow-up: weird. Yahoo cut off my word…