supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
adjective

- extraordinarily good; wonderful

- especially good, great, fantastic

- an expression of excited approval

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) / Merriam-Webster

—
WORD ORIGIN

The word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was a nonsense word created for the 1964 Disney movie "Mary Poppins" by songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman.

It contains real word roots with exaggerated suffixes, giving it a pseudo-Latin feel: super above, cali beauty, fragilistic delicate, expiali to atone, docious educable.

Its inclusion in dictionaries cements its evolution from a fictional coined word to an accepted part of the English lexicon.

—
FROM FICTION TO FACT

Here are some other famous made-up words that have officially entered the dictionary:

- Robot = derived from Czech word "robota" meaning forced labour, coined in the 1920 play R.U.R. (added to OED in 1923)

- Quark = a subatomic particle, invented by physicist Murray Gell-Mann in 1964 (added to OED in 1987)

- Pixel = the smallest unit of an image, invented at NASA in the 1960s (added to OED in 1995)

- Meme = a unit of cultural information/imitation, coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 (added to OED in 2006)

- Bling = slang term for flashy jewelry, coined in hip hop culture c.1999 (added to OED in 2003)

- Selfie = a photo taken of oneself, coined in Australia c. 2000 (added to OED in 2013)

- Binge-watch = a marathon viewing of media, coined in early 2000s (added to OED in 2015)

- Emoji - The pictorial symbols, from Japanese words meaning picture + character (added to OED in 2015)

—
SYNONYMS

above and beyond, ahead of its class (time), alarmingly good, awesome, best ever, better than ever, beyond compare (imagination), breathtaking, consummate, crackerjack, crême de la crême, crowning, ecstatic, elysian, enrapturing, exquisite, first water, five star, flabbergasting, godlike, golden, halcyon, heaven-begotten, intoxicating, majestic, matchless, mind-blowing, numinous, out of this world, paradisaical, paramount, peerless, phenomenal, preeminent, primus inter pares, rapturous, ravishing, resplendent, salutiferous, seraphic, stunning, stupendous, sublime, SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS, super-duper, supernal, superstar, supertremendous, tophole, transcendent, unparagoned, work of art

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation, say something like:

“Actually, the word SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS is easy to pronounce if you say it as 6 separate words: super cali fragi listic expiali docious!”

—
HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations.

Every month, I spend evening and weekend hours with my family researching and writing your daily OWAD. It remains FREE, AD-free, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren’t already, please also consider supporting us - even the equivalent of a single cup of coffee a month will help us cover mailing, site hosting, and maintenance costs. Just head over to DonorBox:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-5-3

or bank transfer to Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40
stating your first name and last name and “OWAD donation” as the ‘Verwendungszweck’

Thank you,
Paul