The Longest Word using Roman Numerals only?

A cryptology book I read as a kid said it was these words (the cryptology exercise was to find phrases to write in Roman Numerals): CIMICID, CIMICIC. But I've long doubted the book.

When U is permitted (because it looks like V) there are many many more.

XXXXX - - - <Never ending line of X's> - - - XXXXXM.

Theoretically, no one would ever have the opportunity to pronounce the word (number), as it constantly changes. However, we would all know that the pronunciation would eventually be forthcoming.

CDK:

CIMICID and CIMICIC are two of the longest examples known - congratulations! but there is a longer word.

If you'd like to add the letter U to the mix, then let's see if we can achieve the following:

1. As many examples as possible with C, D, I, L, M, V, X in it.
2. As many examples as possible with C, D, I, L, M, V, X and U in it

Please keep the word examples to 4-letter words and above.

Interesting question, Biblio. The first things that came to mind for me were CIVIC, CIVIL, MIMIC & VIVID, but I think I've finally aced the question...Isn't DIVIDIVI a type of endemic South-American tree?


-- I know this one's not 4 letters, but the only word I can think of right now that's a valid Roman numeral is MIX (scoring in at 1009). Anyone got any more?

Keep all the word trivia coming, Bib. Cheers.

Monger:

First class! You got DIVIDIVI

Now I wonder which website you found that in?

A few 6-letter examples are:

IMIDIC
CIXIID
ILICIC

My linguistic friend, Susan Thorpe, from the Oxford English dictionary, recently discovered the following Roman Numeral example:

ARMADILLIDIIDAE (commonly known as the "pill bug" and a member of the arthropod family)

...has the longest uninterrupted string of Roman numeral letters in a word (the 9-letter sequence is underlined).

Bib,

Google only lists one page on the internet that mentions that word in reference to it's relevance to this trivia tid bit. It's easy to find in a reverse lookup but not that easy to find to answer your question.

That assumption is insulting (being based on the premise that your trivia is beyond the intellect of the asked) and all the trivia asked on these boards is certainly not of that caliber (over the heads of all the forum members).

It is clearly
CIVIC, because it stretches from C to C.

Bib, I wasn't completely sure if you'd accept dividivi at first since I'd only ever seen it written with a hyphen (divi-divi), but since you said there was only one word longer than Craven's two I figured that was it. (I saw it listed both ways on dictionary.com though.)

On another note, here's one more valid Roman numeral word for anyone who's interested (getting even shorter this time)... LI (a Chinese measure of distance or copper coin). Also the name LIV (as in Tyler).

Monger: DIVIDIVI was a great find, and the hyphenation version would still be acceptable. Well done.

LI is a good example of the TRUE ROMAN NUMERAL WORD, as well as MIX of course.

DIV is another example, albeit, it is an abbreviation for "division" etc.

There is also DIX, which is a placename in the USA, as well as the French word for "ten" - but these examples of mine are really stretching the bounds of English words!

quite diverting.