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Honorificabilitudinitatibus (honōrificābilitūdinitātibus, Latin pronunciation: [hɔnoːrɪfɪkaːbɪlɪtuːdɪnɪˈtaːtɪbʊs]) is the dative and ablative plural of the medieval Latin word honōrificābilitūdinitās, which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours". It is mentioned by the character Costard in Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.
As it appears only once in Shakespeare's works, it is a hapax legomenon in the Shakespeare canon. At 27 letters, it is the longest word in the English language to strictly alternate between consonants and vowels.[1]
- ^ William Hartston (2022), The Encyclopaedia of Everything Else, Atlantic Books, p. 491, ISBN 978-1-83895-723-0