supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
/ˌsuːpəˌkælɨˌfɹæd͡ʒɨˌlɪstɪkˌɛkspɪˌælɨˈdəʊʃəs/
"supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is a 34-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 34
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Fantastic, very wonderful.
Corpus desk
Index EN-supercalifragilisticexpi · supercalifragilisticexpialidocious · English
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 34 letters
- VOW-16 16 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | supercalifragilisticexpialidocious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˌsuːpəˌkælɨˌfɹæd͡ʒɨˌlɪstɪkˌɛkspɪˌælɨˈdəʊʃəs/ |
| Letters | 34 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” in English
Rare enough to double-check
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˌsuːpəˌkælɨˌfɹæd͡ʒɨˌlɪstɪkˌɛkspɪˌælɨˈdəʊʃəs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Fantastic, very wonderful.".
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested (as supercaliflawjalisticexpialadoshus) in a 1931 Syracuse University Daily Orange column, which states that the word “implies all that is grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, wonderful”. In this spelling, it was made famous by its use i… The correct English form is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, spelled S-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-I-F-R-A-G-I-L-I-S-T-I-C-E-X-P-I-A-L-I-D-O-C-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Fantastic, very wonderful.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how supercalifragilisticexpialidocious appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
By comparison with the present transcribers, I'm sure my performance would be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Etymology
First attested (as supercaliflawjalisticexpialadoshus) in a 1931 Syracuse University Daily Orange column, which states that the word “implies all that is grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, wonderful”. In this spelling, it was made famous by its use in a song of the same title in the movie Mary Poppins (1964), by songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman; they wrote in 1998: When we were little boys in the mid-1930s, we went to a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains, where we were introduced to a very long word that had been passed down in many variations through many generations of kids. […] The word as we first heard it was super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus. Apparently a fanciful formation on super (compare super-), -ic, and -ious; various rationalizations of the other elements have been offered, but none supported by any evidence. One by American linguist Richard Lederer in his book Crazy English (1989) is super- (“above”) + cali- (“beauty”) + fragilistic- (“delicate”) + expiali- (“to atone”) + -docious (“educable”), the sum of which equals “atoning for extreme and delicate beauty [while being] highly educable”. This etymology is based on calli-, fragile, expiate, and docious (“amenable to order”) or docity (“quickness of comprehension”), from Latin doceō (“to teach”). For the -docious ending, compare braggadocious (first attested in American English, in 1853), and more distantly, perhaps bodacious. The element -cali- may have been taken from California (especially in view of -califlawja- in the 1931 version). For -listic, compare (un)realistic.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.