Longest

How to spell longest

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce longest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does longest mean?

1. adjectiveGreatest in length, extent, or duration.

Longest in a sentence

• The longest river on the continent flows for thousands of miles.

• The month of June has the longest daylight hours of the year.

Where does longest come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the superlative form of the adjective 'long', which descends directly from the Old English 'lang' or 'long', meaning extended in space or time. The word belongs to the native Germanic core of English and has close cousins in German 'lang' and Dutch 'lang', all tracing back to a shared Proto-Germanic root. The superlative ending '-est' is equally ancient and native, used since Old English to mark the highest degree of a quality, as in 'strongest' and 'fastest'. Because both the root and the suffix are so familiar, the spelling is regular: you simply add '-est' to 'long', keeping the silent 'g' that has clung to the word for over a thousand years. The only mild trap is remembering that single final consonant before the ending, with no doubling and no change to the base.

How the word is built

• long (root, from Old English lang)
• -est (superlative suffix)