NORTH END — Ask any North Kitsap School District third-grader what’s the longest word in the dictionary and they’ll know.

Although they might not be able to spell or pronounce it.

It’s actually a bit of a trick question, as the answer is listed in the back of each of the dictionaries given to every NKSD third-grader by Embarq employees.

During the week before school let out for winter break, Embarq employees attended the third grade and handed out more than 500 early Christmas present dictionaries.

Jeff Dennison, Embarq’s Poulsbo public affairs manger, said giving dictionaries is one way the company gives back to the community and supports their belief in the importance of youth development. He also said they’ve found a lot of students don’t have their own dictionary at home, so it becomes a very useful tool.

And the third grade is the perfect time to foster the love of words in students.

“In third grade they’re really getting into the discovery of guide words and looking up vocabulary on a daily basis,” Dennison said. “Dictionaries aren’t political, they aren’t religious or con troversial, they’re just plain useful. These gifts are given to the student and not the school so students can take them home and use them forever.”

But Embarq’s employees’ efforts are more than a dictionary giveaway.

This is the second year Embarq, in conjunction with the online organization www.dictionaryproject.org, has provided NKSD third-graders with the word-defining books. Dennison said both years the teachers and students have been “extremely happy.”

Teachers are happy because Dennison and other employees actually take over class for an approximate 25-minute word finding, dictionary-using lesson.

“We do a full lesson — what is a dictionary, how do you look up words — we look up words,” Dennison explained. “They get to put their name in their book with a pen and that’s a kick because they’re not supposed to write in books. It’s just glee.”

The students also get to try their hand at stumping Dennison’s ability to locate various words among the pages.

One of the most creative suggestions Dennison heard was from a Suquamish Elementary third-grader who wanted to know the definition for, “Antidisestablishmentarianism.”

A few of the more common requests are the “Mary Poppins” classic “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” or Mississippi. Embarq employees still have a few schools to visit in January as their attempts to reach all the schools before the break were sidelined because of the weather.

The longest word in the dictionary, according to infoplease.com and wikipedia.com, is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” which infoplease.com defines as, “An obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silica dust, sometimes cited as one of the longest words in the English language.”