antidisestablishmentarianism

In nineteenth century Great Britain those who favored the maintenance of the Church of England a.k.a. the Anglican Church as the established or state-sponsored religion were Establishmentarians.

Those who wished to abolish the state-sponsored status of the Church of England were Disestablishmentarians. "Antidistestablishmentarian" was a semi-jocular word for the pro C. of E. faction.

Antidisestablishmentarianism can still be defined as the longest non-medical word in the English language, depending on how the word floccinaucinihilipilification is derived - some dictionaries have claimed that the word should be hyphenated, which would make it shorter. Antidisestablishmentarianism isn't too badly defined, as disestablishment originally meant the seperation of church and state, and so the longer word emerged as a natural, if contrived, way of grouping people who were against it politically.

Some of these write-ups are either too complex to be easily understood, or wrong. I'm not sure which, so in any case, this is the clarification:

• establishmentarianism: for the establishment
• disestablishmentarianism: against the establishment
• antidisestablishmentarianism: against those who are against the establishment

Or you can think of it this way:
! (! (establishmentarianism))
That's read as, "not not establishmentarianism."

If you remember your high school English classes, double negatives in English don't reinforce each other. Therefore, the "anti" means that it is against "disestablishmentarianism." The "anti" doesn't not mean "really dis."

Several decades ago, all through my school days, strong emphasis was put on spelling . Each year the school would promote and have a spelling bee. Students would enter the competition and be given very difficult words to spell. These competitions became state and national, as well as local tournaments. As long as you spelled correctly, you stayed in the game and you continued to stand, but one miss, and you took your seat. Some words were short and tough, but most were big, long, words. This word, antidisestablishmentarianism was given to the two final national contestants; one missed and one didn't and we had a new Spelling Bee World Champion.

I've always remembered this word.

Its meaning, according to Merriam-Webster, is a philosophy that opposes disestablishment, i.e., the deprivement of an established status; not so easy to remember