(NewsNation) — Dictionary.com named “67,” also spelled “6-7” or “six-seven,” its 2025 Word of the Year, calling the word “meaningful to the people who use it because of the connection it fosters.”
“The Word of the Year isn’t just about popular usage; it reveals the stories we tell about ourselves and how we’ve changed over the year,” the online wordbook said. “And for these reasons, Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year is 67.”
What does 67 mean?
Six-seven, not sixty-seven, is defined on Dictionary.com as “a viral, ambiguous slang term that has waffled its way through Gen Alpha social media and school hallways.”
The word could also mean “so-so or “maybe this, maybe that,” especially when paired with hand gestures such as face palms, according to Dictionary.com.
Some also use the phrase as a reply to questions, for example, if a parent asks their child, “Hello, darling child, how was school today?” They might respond, “67!”
Yet, Dictionary.com said its “most defining feature” is that it’s “impossible to define.”
“It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical,” Dictionary.com said. “It’s the logical endpoint of being perpetually online, scrolling endlessly, consuming content fed to users by algorithms trained by other algorithms.”
When did 67 become a popular phrase?
Six-seven has a strong presence on social media and in online culture and has been widely searched on Google, according to Dictionary.com, likely by parents or educators trying to understand what it means.
The phrase is thought to have originated from the December 2024 song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla.
It quickly went viral on TikToks featuring basketball players and a young boy who will forevermore be known as the “67 kid.”
Searches for 67 experienced a dramatic rise beginning this summer, Dictionary.com said. Since June, searches have increased more than sixfold, with no signs of stopping.
On Dictionary.com’s shortlist this year were the words agentic, aura farming, broligrachy, clanker, dynamite emoji (TNT, Taylor ‘n’ Travis), Gen Z state, kisscam, overtourism, tariff and tradwife.