Dictionary.com‘s Phrase of the Yr is one which few can outline.
The net reference device introduced on Oct. 29 that “6 7” is its phrase of the yr.
In case you don’t know a school-aged child, you in all probability aren’t aware of “6 7” (“six seven”), the slang phrase that has captivated Gen Alpha to the extent that lecturers have began to ban it from colleges.
However what does it really imply? Not a lot, Dictionary.com mentioned.
“Maybe probably the most defining function of 67 is that it’s unattainable to outline,” the announcement learn. “It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical.”
Some individuals interpret it as “so-so” or “possibly this, possibly that,” and it’s usually paired with a shrug-like hand gesture the place palms face up and transfer alternately. It’s additionally used as an exclamation.
Dictionary.com described the phrase as “traditional brainrot slang: purposefully nonsensical, endlessly remixable and all about being in on the absurdity.”
“Few slang phrases have captured the cultural temper of 2025 fairly like 67,” Steve Johnson, PhD, Director of Lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group at IXL Studying, mentioned in a assertion.
“It’s half inside joke, half social sign and half efficiency. When individuals say it, they’re not simply repeating a meme; they’re shouting a sense. It’s one of many first Phrases of the Yr that works as an interjection, a burst of vitality that spreads and connects individuals lengthy earlier than anybody agrees on what it really means.”
Individuals on social media had been baffled by the selection.
“when did 67 turn into a phrase?” somebody requested.
“Since when is a quantity a phrase? God, I hate children,” one added.
“A phrase with no definition. Good,” one other sarcastically wrote.
“We’re cooked,” one mentioned. “We had been purported to be advancing as a civilization, however proper now we’re regressing.”
“The least critical dictionary ever,” a consumer declared.
“That’s like a person being named girl of the yr,” one other joked.
To pick out 67 because the phrase of the yr, Dictionary.com’s lexicographers regarded for phrases that “made an affect on our conversations” by analyzing information reminiscent of newsworthy headlines, social media traits, search engine outcomes and extra.
Dictionary.com’s Phrase of the Yr and short-listed nominees are supposed to “seize pivotal moments in language and tradition” and “function a linguistic time capsule.”
Starting in the summertime of 2025, searches for “67” dramatically elevated, and since June, these search numbers have elevated greater than sixfold.
It’s unclear precisely the place and the way 67 originated. Some hyperlink it again to a music known as “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, and others deliver it again to NBA participant LaMelo Ball, who’s 6ft 7in.
A TikTok of a video discussing the Charlotte Hornets level guard’s top had the “67” lyric from “Doot Doot” dubbed over it, and it shortly went viral with 10.1 million views and 1.3 million likes as of Oct. 30.
Nevertheless, 67 isn’t the one time period that dominated tradition this yr. Different phrases on Dictionary.com’s shortlist for 2025 embody agentic, aura farming, broligarchy, clanker, Gen Z stare, kiss cam, overtourism, tariff and trad spouse.
One other non-word that made the brief record is the dynamite emoji, which historically represents dynamite, a firecracker or TNT. The emoji took on a brand new which means in 2025 following the engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as social media customers playfully rebranded the emoji as shorthand for the couple –“T ‘n’ T,” or “T & T.”
