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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Polysyllable

Polysyllable \Pol"y*syl`la*ble\, n. [Poly- + syllable.] A word of many syllables, or consisting of more syllables than three; -- words of less than four syllables being called monosyllables, dissyllables, and trisyllables.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
polysyllable

1560s; see poly- + syllable. As a rule, a word of more than three syllables.

Wiktionary
polysyllable

n. A word with more than two syllables. Sometimes used in a more restricted sense.

WordNet
polysyllable

n. a word of more than three syllables [syn: polysyllabic word]

Usage examples of "polysyllable".

Literature can never conform to the dictates of pure euphony, while grammar, which has been shaped not in the interests of prosody, but for the service of thought, bars the way with its clumsy inalterable polysyllables and the monotonous sing-song of its inflexions.

A quick scan of the photocopied polysyllables revealed no specific goals.

I walked into the hall, to find utter panic, of the Oxford variety: tight voices, careful polysyllables, a certain amount of wringing of hands.

The doctors held learned consultations upon him, and discoursed upon the centre of memory and depressed tables, deranged nerve-cells and cerebral congestions, but all their polysyllables began and ended at the fact that the man's memory was gone, and that it was beyond the power of science to restore it.