Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft is a compound word that serves as an example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages. According to the 1996 "Guinness Book of World Records", it is the longest word published in the German language.
Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
Words as long as this are nowhere near common in German. When the law was proposed in the state parliament, the members reacted with laughter and the responsible minister Till Backhaus apologized for the "possibly excessive length".
In 1999, the German Language Society nominated "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" for its Word of the Year award, but it lost to das Millennium, a Latin word that gained in usage at that time, complementing the German word for millennium, "Jahrtausend".