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This is a list of the candidates for 'longest English word of one syllable'. Unsurprisingly, most of these long words contain one or more digraphs (e.g., ''rr'' or ''ai'') and the occasional trigraph (e.g., ''tch''). That is, multiple letters are used to represent a single sound. Additionally, neither the ''-ed'' preterite past tense ending for verbs, nor the ''-s'' plural ending for nouns increases the syllable count for certain words, so it is unsurprising that the longest words would use these endings.

Contents

Eleven letters

Ten letters

Nine letters

See also

External links

Eleven letters

The eleven-letter word ''broughammed'' (created from ''brougham'' by analogy with ''bussed'', ''biked'', ''carted'' etc.), while readily pronounceable as one syllable in all dialects ("broomed", ), is yet to appear in a print dictionary. See: "ough" words. The word might also be spelled ''broughamed'', with ten letters.
''Squirrelled'' is the spelling in British English of a word usually spelled in American English as ''squirreled'' (see -led and -lled spellings) . While in Received Pronunciation the word has two syllables (), it is often pronounced (rhymes with ''world'') in North American English [1]. Of those who use the one-syllable pronunciation, some may use the eleven-letter spelling; for the rest, it is a ten-letter monosyllable.

Ten letters

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the longest English word of one syllable is the ten-letter ''scraunched'', appearing in a 1620 translation of Cervantes' ''Don Quixote''. It is a largely obsolete form of ''scrunched'' or ''crunched''.
Note, however, that in early Modern English, the ''-ed'' ending was frequently pronounced with a (schwa) or or , resulting in another syllable. Even today, the ''e'' is pronounced as a schwa in some dialects, resulting in an increased syllable count.
Aside from the ''-ed'' pronunciation issue, ''scraunched's claim is further weakened by the fact that English spelling was largely unstandardized throughout the early Modern English period until the advent of modern dictionaries. 1620 is well within the early Modern English period.

Nine letters

There are a number of nine-letter words of a single syllable.

★ ''broughams''

★ ''craunched''

★ ''schlepped''

★ ''scratched''

★ ''scraughed''

★ ''screeched''

★ ''scrinched''

★ ''scritched''

★ ''scrooched''

★ ''scrounged''

★ ''scrunched''

★ ''sprainged''

★ ''spreathed''

★ ''squelched''

★ ''squirrels'' (cf. above)

★ ''straights''

★ ''strengths''

★ ''stretched''

★ ''throughed''

★ ''thrutched''
The word ''strengths'' is unique among these in only containing a single vowel letter. It is also one of the most complex syllables in English, its consonants and vowels being distributed as CCCVCCCC (, although it can be pronounced ). Note further that the the /k/ in is not part of the underlying structure of the word, but an example of homorganic excrescence.

See also

★ Longest word in English

External links

★ askoxford.com: What is the longest one-syllable English word?

★ rec-puzzles.org: What words have an exceptional number of letters per syllable?

★ The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin (pseudonym of Lucy Aikin)

★ Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin