What Is the Most Difficult Word to Pronounce in English
Betsy Farrell
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Anathema
There are too many As for this one to roll off the tongue easily, and if you're wondering what it means, you're not alone. Anathema — that is, someone or something intensely disliked — is in the top 1% of looked-up words on Merriam-Webster.
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Anemone
Even Nemo couldn't pronounce this word in the Pixar movie — and he lives in one! If you can get through the first two syllables, you're in the clear.
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Antarctic
Those double Cs spell trouble. Just like the similarly named Arctic, the southern pole often gets renamed the Ant-ART-tic.
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Antidisestablishmentarianism
For most people, it's the longest word they know. For others, it's a bona fide tongue twister at a whopping total 28 letters and 13 syllables. (Psst, it means being opposed to the withdrawal of state support from an established church.)
Betsy Farrell
5 of 31
Asterisk
Linguists know that pesky metathesis makes this typographical symbol hard to say. Metathesis? That's when people accidentally rearrange sounds or syllables in a word, like a toddler saying spaghetti as "pasketti." In this case, it's the final S and the K that do a little switcheroo, coming out as "asteriks."
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Brewery
No, it's not just the booze talking. Discussing beer-making bars while sober is hard enough thanks to that tricky middle syllable.
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Cavalry
Metathesis strikes again! It doesn't help that many people also confuse cavalry (armed forces on horseback) with the place Calvary, as in the Bible.
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Comfortable
It's so, so easy to skip that "tuh" sound, but just because you're relaxing doesn't mean you should give up on enunciation.
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Defibrillator
Dissimilation is another linguistic phenomenon you can blame mispronunciations on. That's when similar consonants or vowels in a word become less alike, e.g. defibrillator becoming "defibyulator."
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10 of 31
Deteriorate
The first R in deteriorate gets the same treatment. You could try to say it correctly, or just pick one of many, many synonyms instead: decay, decline, degenerate, devolve ... and that's just the Ds!
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Explicit
Take heart. Almost everyone sounds like they have a lisp when they pronounce explicit.
Betsy Farrell
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Exponentially
Sometimes exponentially get exponentially harder to say the more you try to say it.
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February
Here's another case of dissimilation, except people mispronounce this month so often that many dictionaries accept it either way. According to Merriam-Webster, "The \y\ heard from many speakers is not an intrusion but rather a common pronunciation of the vowel U after a consonant, as in January and annual."
Betsy Farrell
14 of 31
Floccinaucinihilipilification
At 29 letters, floccinaucinihilipilification has earned the unofficial title of the longest non-technical word in the English language. Don't let its length fool you. It simply means the act or habit of estimating something as worthless.
Betsy Farrell
15 of 31
Ignominious
CNN anchor Jake Tapper recently used this word on air and quickly prompted a 4,695% surge in lookups on Merriam-Webster. A synonym for dishonorable or despicable, it's perfect for talking about controversial politics — if you're brave enough to say it, that is.
Betsy Farrell
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Isthmus
Those double Ss are absolutely killer. Thankfully, most people don't live on narrow strips of land and can ignore the geographical term altogether.
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Library
Library (not "liberry") is so hard to say that Merriam-Webster can cite files where even college presidents and professors use the dissimilated form.
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Massachusetts
The historic state name comes from the native people's Algonquian word, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. But for people outside of New England, that last S has the unfortunate tendency to turn into an "sh" sound.
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Often
You may use this common word often enough, but if you're saying it as "off-ten," you're technically in the wrong. Merriam-Webster prefers the T-less version since it better reflects the evolution from its Middle English roots.
Betsy Farrell
20 of 31
Onomatopoeia
Buzz, hiss, splash, meow — those so-simple words all are perfect examples of onomatopoeia, which is the act of naming something similar to the sound associated with it. Good luck saying — and spelling — this doozy!
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Otorhinolaryngological
There's a reason you call your ear, nose and throat specialist an ENT doctor. No one wants to say otolaryngologist over and over again.
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Phenomenon
The best part of the word phenomenon is talking about multiple phenomena. Although if you'd like to use the more boring "phenomenons," the other plural is technically correct as well.
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23 of 31
Rural
30 Rock fans will remember The Rural Juror, the tongue-twisting fictional film title Tina Fey and her co-writers created as a running joke. Put them together, and you get the comically amazing "ruhhr-juhhrr."
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Schadenfreude
Another perennially popular word on Merriam-Webster, this intimidating-looking German noun that often pops up in essays and books refers to enjoyment derived from others' misfortunes.
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Sesquipedalian
Basketball superstar Steph Curry made headlines when he recently challenged a group of high schoolers to a game of S-E-S-Q-U-I-P-E-D-A-L-I-A-N instead of H-O-R-S-E. Amazingly, the adjective literally means "characterized by the use of long words."
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Sixth
Yes, it's only one syllable. No, that doesn't make this word any easier to say.
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Specific
A viral Reddit thread in 2015 commiserated about the most difficult words pronounce. This was one of them.
Betsy Farrell
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Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The only way to successfully say this word is to sing it, of course. While the catchy tune in 1964's Mary Poppins popularized the term, the coined word actually dates back a little farther to the '40s, according to Oxford English Dictionaries.
Betsy Farrell
29 of 31
Synecdoche
Budding writers know that a synecdoche is a figure of speech where a part represents a whole (like you might call a car your "wheels") or vice versa. Remember that the last syllable sounds like "kee" and you'll do your high school English teacher proud.
Betsy Farrell
30 of 31
Temperature
It's pronounced just like it looks, but dissimilation makes giving the weather report a little harder than it should be.
What Is the Most Difficult Word to Pronounce in English
Source: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/g4524/most-hard-to-pronounce-english-words/
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