What is the Longest Word with No Repeated Letters?

中文

Fun facts: The longest English word in the dictionary contains 45 letters, while the longest place name in Britain has 58 letters in it. In this Ed’s Elevenses blog post, we will find out what the longest English word with no repeated letters is.

You may be familiar with the sentence: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This is an example of a pangram—a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet. A perfect pangram, however, uses just 26 letters, that means, A to Z only once.

Can a single word be like a perfect pangram?

Sadly, the answer is no; but the longest English word that does not repeat a letter has 15 letters. It is still pretty impressive, isn’t it?

In fact, there are two such 15-letter words in the dictionary: uncopyrightable and dermatoglyphics.

Uncopyrightable (adjective): Not able to be protected by copyright
Dermatoglyphics (noun): The study of skin patterns/markings, such as fingerprints

Since you are here, you may be interested in: What is the Longest English Word?

Or take a look at: The Fox and The Dog: What is a Pangram?

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Edison Tam MA MCIL CL is a Translator, Proofreader, and Copyeditor (zh-hk/en) who works with students, independent non-fiction writers, academic researchers, and clients from businesses and organisations of all sizes.

He is Chartered Linguist and Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), and has undergone wide-ranging academic training in Business, Modern Languages, and Applied Linguistics in Hong Kong, London, and Barcelona.