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For the reverse order, just pipe the output in tac:

awk '{w[length] = w[length] ? w[length]"\n"$0 : $0} END {for(l in w) print w[l]}' file | tac

length() is a awk function that output the,...

Nice trick for the reverse order!

Edit:
My solution above does not return the expected result on large dictionaries. The w array gets out of sequence. Updated version inspired by Scrutinizer's...

Or, instead of tac, expanding on ripat's suggestion:
awk '{l=length; if(l>m)m=l; w[l]=w[l] $0 RS} END{for(l=m;l>=1;l--) if(w[l])printf "%s",w[l]}' infile

awk oneliner alternative

awk '{w[length] = w[length] ? w[length]"\n"$0 : $0} END {for(l in w) print w[l]}' file

This thread (https://www.unix.com/shell-programming-scripting/101372-how-sort-strings-length.html) might help.

Note that for reverse order sorting you can use sort -nr

Hi.

The available utility msort allows a number of different comparison types, and among them is string length. Here's an example on a sample of dictionary data:
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# @(#)...