Subalphabetic Words
FICKLEHEADED and FIDDLEDEEDEE are the longest English words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet, each being 12 letters long. The 13-letter CABBAGEHEADED and ILLEFFACEABLE are not in dictionaries. Unfortunately, neither is HIGGLEHAGGLED nor GIBBLEGABBLED, also 13 letters each.
It is harder to make long words from the second half of the alphabet, as there are only two vowels, and these vowels are less common than those found in the first half of the alphabet. The longest is NONSUPPORTS (11 letters), although if place names are allowed then the 13-letter words TUTTOQQORTOOQ (in Greenland) and ROSSOUWSPOORT (in South Africa) are valid.
ACCEDED, CABBAGE, BAGGAGE, DEFACED, EFFACED, and FEEDBAG are seven-letter words which can be played on a musical instrument, that is to say they contain only letters in the range A-G. CABBAGED, at eight letters, is the longest such word.
Symmetrical Words
Closely related to palindromes, symmetrical words are words that have an axis of symmetry, or point of rotational symmetry. Needless to say, it is relevant whether the word is written in upper or lower case.
Some long words with horizontal symmetry are: BEDECKED, BOOHOOED, CHECKBOOK, CODEBOOK, COOKBOOK, DECIDED, DIOXIDE, DOBCHICK, EXCEEDED, HOODOOED, and KEBOBBED. The longest such word, with ten letters, is OKEECHOBEE.
The longest words with vertical symmetry are OTTO, MAAM, and TOOT. Others include MOM, WOW, AHA, AHA, AIA, AMA, AVA, AWA, HAH, HOH, HUH, MAM, MIM, MUM, OHO, OXO, TAT, TIT, TOT, TUT, UTU, VAV, and WAW!
When written in upper case, the word BID has horizontal symmetry, but when written in lower case it has vertical symmetry – bid!
SWIMS is probably the longest word with 180-degree rotational symmetry. All of the letters in the words SOONISH (7 letters) and ONIONS (6 letters) independently have 180-degree rotational symmetry.
Most looked-up and most misspelled Words
PARADIGM was the word most frequently looked up in 1998 in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Some other words frequently looked up, besides obscene words, were UBIQUITOUS, ESOTERIC, OXYMORON, SERENDIPITY, HUBRIS, OBSEQUIOUS, and ECLECTIC. In 2001, the ten most frequently looked up words in the Cambridge Dictionaries Online were SERENDIPITY, IDIOM, PARADIGM, UBIQUITOUS, DICTIONARY, PRAGMATIC, EFFECT, GRY, JINGOISM, and FOIBLE. The most frequently looked up article in the World Book Encyclopedia is said to be SNAKE.
The words most likely to be misspelled (ratio of incorrect to correct spelling) according to a study of Usenet traffic some years ago were DUMBELL, OCCURRENCE, MEMENTO, FRUSTUM, COLLECTIBLE, AMATEUR, DAIQUIRI, PASTIME, ACCIDENTALLY, PLAYWRIGHT, EMBARRASS, ACQUIT, HARASS, and PRONUNCIATION. The same study showed the words most frequently misspelled (by gross count) to be: RECEIVE, A LOT, AMATEUR, SEPARATE, REALIZE, THEIR, DEFINITE, INDEPENDENT, WEIRD, EMBARRASS, ARGUMENT, NO ONE, ACQUIRE, ACCIDENTALLY, OCCURRENCE, COLLECTIBLE, RIDICULOUS, MANEUVER, LIAISON, GAUGE, ATHEIST, GRAMMAR, SUPERSEDE, KERNEL, and CONSENSUS.
More Word Records
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