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.
Longest words
Icelandic has the ability to form compounds of arbitrary length by stringing together genitives (), so no single words of maximal length exist in the language. However, and are sometimes cited as particularly long words; the latter has 64 letters and means "a keychain ring for the outdoor key of road workers shed in a moor called Vaðlaheiði".