Cheating a bit, but I have a generic script to read a dictionary, and execute arbitrary regexes or code blocks against it. Since I already have the dictionary in a nice format, in a default location, the command line looks like this: 
w -r a -r b -r c -r d -r e -r f|perl -ple '$_=length($_)." $_"'|sort -
+n|head -1

[download]

But of course, w is rather long and generic, and will take a number of regexes or a single code block.

And this misses multiple words, if several are the same length. (I get "feedback" and "boldface" from my list, at length 8.)

Interestingly, adding "g" gives only 1 word, and doesn't require sorting: "blackfigured": 

w -r a -r b -r c -r d -r e -r f -r g|perl -ple '$_=length($_)." $_"'

[download]

ETA: Using the codeblock form: 

w -c '$_=shift;length if/a/&&/b/&&/c/&&/d/&&/e/&&/f/'|sort -n -k 3|hea
+d -1

[download]

(The output format is a bit different with codeblock, and must be sorted by field 3.)

-QM
--
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

In reply to Re: Find the shortest word in the English Language with: a b c d e f by QM
in thread Find the shortest word in the English Language with: a b c d e f by usemodperl

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.