Longest word with adjacent letters on a keyboard

Question

What is the longest English word you can type using only letters that are adjacent on a QWERTY keyboard?

You can start anywhere and then either repeat the previous letter or move to an adjacent one.

For convenience of those who don't have a QWERTY keyboard, it looks like this.

 ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐
 | Q | W | E | R | T | Y | U | I | O | P |
 └─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┘
   | A | S | D | F | G | H | J | K | L |
   └─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴───┘
     | Z | X | C | V | B | N | M |
     └───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘

I found this puzzle on the Internet and I don't have a definitive solution.

I find it interesting that all the answers so far rely entirely on letters typed with the left hand. This is likely due to the more common vowels being on that side as well as the many suffixes that can be tacked using only E, S, and D. This might be an interesting question for right-hand only letters. — Engineer Toast, Apr 01 '15 at 16:59
Is the same key considered 'adjacent'? IE: if I type 'ERRED' have I made a mistake (heh heh, see what I did there?) because R is not adjacent to R? — Wolfman Joe, Apr 01 '15 at 18:01
@WolfmanJoe it's specified in the question, although I admit it took me a second reading to notice it. — Joffan, Apr 01 '15 at 18:02
@EngineerToast I'd say that only proper nouns found in an English dictionary count as English words, but it's still interesting to know if there are any other ones with adjacent letters. Should I edit that in the question? — GOTO 0, Apr 02 '15 at 05:22
@GOTO0 I couldn't find any others that were longer than what were already found. There are some place names that are tied with other words but no new champions emerged. — Engineer Toast, Apr 02 '15 at 13:33
Too bad I missed april 1st, or i'll answer lolololololololololololololololololololololololololol... — Alex, Apr 02 '15 at 16:47

score 19 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 01 '15 at 20:15

I liked Engineer Toast's idea of finding the longest word you could type with right-hand only letters, so I found those as well.

These words come from my computer's /usr/share/dict/words file, you can decide for yourself which words count as English.

All keys

(10, 'desertress')
(10, 'assertress')
(9, 'redresser')
(8, 'kolokolo')
(8, 'assessee')

Left keys

(10, 'desertress')
(10, 'assertress')
(9, 'redresser')
(8, 'assessee')
(8, 'assessed')

Right keys

(8, 'kolokolo')
(6, 'pookoo')
(6, 'polloi')
(6, 'lollop')
(5, 'plook')

I used the following code to come up with this answer:

LEFT_KEYS = {
    'Q':['Q', 'W', 'A'],
    'W':['W', 'Q', 'A', 'S', 'E'],
    'E':['E', 'W', 'S', 'D', 'R'],
    'R':['R', 'E', 'D', 'F', 'T'],
    'T':['T', 'R', 'F', 'G', 'Y'],
    'A':['A', 'Q', 'Z', 'W', 'S'],
    'S':['S', 'W', 'A', 'Z', 'X', 'D', 'E'],
    'D':['D', 'E', 'S', 'X', 'C', 'F', 'R'],
    'F':['F', 'R', 'D', 'C', 'V', 'G', 'T'],
    'G':['G', 'T', 'F', 'V', 'B', 'H', 'Y'],
    'Z':['Z', 'A', 'S', 'X'],
    'X':['X', 'S', 'Z', 'D', 'C'],
    'C':['C', 'D', 'X', 'F', 'V'],
    'V':['V', 'F', 'C', 'B', 'G'],
    'B':['B', 'G', 'V', 'N', 'H']
}

RIGHT_KEYS = {
    'Y':['Y', 'T', 'G', 'H', 'U'],
    'U':['U', 'Y', 'H', 'J', 'I'],
    'I':['I', 'U', 'J', 'K', 'O'],
    'O':['O', 'I', 'K', 'L', 'P'],
    'P':['P', 'O', 'L'],
    'H':['H', 'Y', 'G', 'B', 'N', 'J', 'U'],
    'J':['J', 'U', 'H', 'N', 'M', 'K', 'I'],
    'K':['K', 'I', 'J', 'M', 'L', 'O'],
    'L':['L', 'O', 'K', 'P'],
    'N':['N', 'H', 'B', 'M', 'J'],
    'M':['M', 'J', 'N', 'K']
}

ALL_KEYS = LEFT_KEYS.copy()
ALL_KEYS.update(RIGHT_KEYS)

def adjacent(keyset, word):
    lastletter = None
    for letter in word.upper():
        if lastletter:
            if not letter in keyset.get(lastletter, []):
                return False
        lastletter = letter
    return True

def read_word_list():
    with open('/usr/share/dict/words') as wordfile:
        return [w.strip() for w in wordfile.readlines() if len(set(w.strip())) > 1]

WORDS = read_word_list()
ADJACENT_WORDS = []
for WORD in WORDS:
    if adjacent(ALL_KEYS, WORD):
        ADJACENT_WORDS.append((len(WORD), WORD))

for WORD in sorted(ADJACENT_WORDS)[-5:]:
    print WORD

@immibis So you don't employ a desertress from Kolokolo to stand out from the hoi polloi? Mine is quite an assertress. — Philipp, Apr 02 '15 at 10:52

Joffan · Answer 2 · 2015-04-02T16:43:26.877

17

I get 9 letters:

REDRESSES/REDRESSED

For non-standard words, regarding extinct words and new coinages with equal caution... 11 letters? 14? 16?

I've seen usage of "freedressing" (without regard to gender rules) so presumably someone who does this is a FREEDRESSER (11 letters). Of course, then specifying gender for such a person - a FREEDRESSERESS - might well be objectionable, so they might complain "I can't believe you FREEDRESSERESSED me!"

edited Apr 02 '15 at 16:43

answered Apr 01 '15 at 16:52

Joffan

1,599
10
20

1

It's not often that I lol on StackExchange. – Bob Jansen Apr 02 '15 at 19:26

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 02 '15 at 07:33

11

FREEWEED

The best solution I can think of.

answered Apr 02 '15 at 07:33

Cannabis

127
2

1

Umm, but that would be two words which is not an answer to the question... – Len Apr 02 '15 at 08:23
17

Your name, your answer, laughing too hard! – leoll2 Apr 02 '15 at 09:59
Not to be pedantic but by this logic, you forgot about FREEWEEDS and FREEWEEDER – adamwong246 Apr 02 '15 at 21:48

score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 01 '15 at 16:11

7

ASSESSED/ASSESSES

is the longest I can come up with.

edited Apr 01 '15 at 16:11

Ian MacDonald

12,806
1
33
63

answered Apr 01 '15 at 16:09

Oblongamous

1,224
7
26

8 letters counted – hildred Apr 01 '15 at 18:04

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

6

10 LETTERS

I found one with 10 letters but I can't find it in the standard dictionaries. It seems to be an older English word as the modern version drops the gender-specific bit.

DESERTRESS

Otherwise, the 9 letter versions already noted are the longest I can find.

12 LETTERS

Or, as pointed out in by EagleV_Attnam in a comment on mark's post, here's a 12 letter option that should have been obvious:

DESERTRESSES

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

Community

1

answered Apr 01 '15 at 19:57

Engineer Toast

17,506
1
49
152

Hey, if you're going to go that way, why not "dessertresses" - that would clearly be female experts in sweet baked goods :D. – neminem Apr 02 '15 at 17:34
@neminem I'm all for silly comments despite some SE users who are against such nonsense. As I pointed out, I couldn't find either word in a dictionary. I found references to "desertress" in old books and in translation dictionaries and the "-es" was a logical extension of that. I can't find any references to "dessertress" except for the name of a blog. You could argue that, if one were to create another blog with the name "dessertress" then there would be multiple "dessertresses" in the blogosphere. However, that could be expanded to any string whatsoever as it is a made up name. – Engineer Toast Apr 02 '15 at 17:40

lipeiran · Answer 6 · 2015-04-01T16:47:02.597

5

I got the following

seesawed
dessert

edit:

reseesawed, but I am not sure if that is a word or not.

edited Apr 01 '15 at 16:47

answered Apr 01 '15 at 16:32

lipeiran

543
4
16

score -4 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 04 '15 at 05:41

-4

stewardesses (12 letter) Hope to contribute more.

answered Apr 04 '15 at 05:41

thepace

2,927
1
13
11

1

This is the 3rd time this answer has been given. The previous 2 answers were deleted because the question asks for adjacent keys with no consideration of left or right hand. It seems that this answer should not be deleted to allow others to see that it has already been provided. – Len Apr 04 '15 at 07:04
2

How do you expect us to know if it was deleted and never added? In any case, I will have the post retained to avoid any such future posts. – thepace Apr 05 '15 at 08:30

Longest word with adjacent letters on a keyboard

7 Answers7

All keys

Left keys

Right keys

10 LETTERS

12 LETTERS

Linked

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