Each year, Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year and short-listed nominees capture pivotal moments in language and culture. These words serve as a linguistic time capsule, reflecting social trends and global events that defined the year.
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. And for these reasons, Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year is 67.
If you’re the parent of a school-aged child, you might be feeling a familiar vexation at the sight of these two formerly innocuous numerals.
If you’re a member of Gen Alpha, however, maybe you’re smirking at the thought of adults once again struggling to make sense of your notoriously slippery slang. And if it’s a surprise to you that 67 (pronounced “six-seven”) is somehow newsworthy, don’t worry, because we’re all still trying to figure out exactly what it means.
Why Did We Choose 67 as the Word of the Year?
To select the 2025 Word of the Year, our lexicographers analyzed a large amount of data including newsworthy headlines, trends on social media, search engine results, and more to identify words that made an impact on our conversations, online and in the real world.
Searches for 67 experienced a dramatic rise beginning in the summer of 2025. Since June, those searches have increased more than sixfold, and so far the surge shows no signs of stopping. Most other two-digit numbers had no meaningful trend over that period, implying that there is something special about 67.
The origin of this most modern use of 67 is thought to be a song called “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla. (This is an opportune moment to mention that you may also see it written as 6 7, 6-7, or six-seven, but the most important thing is to never pronounce it as “sixty-seven.”)
It was quickly reinforced by viral TikToks featuring basketball players and a young boy who will forevermore be known as the “67 Kid.” Within weeks, teachers were trading tips online about how to get their students to stop saying 67 all day long.
What counts as a word? Do we consider slang terms to be “real” words? To learn more about our approach to adding words to Dictionary.com, click here.
And now for the moment adults around the world have been waiting for: What does 67 mean? Well…it’s complicated. Some say it means “so-so,” or “maybe this, maybe that,” especially when paired with its signature hand gesture where both palms face up and move alternately up and down.
Some youngsters, sensing an opportunity to reliably frustrate their elders, will use it to stand in for a reply to just about any question. (“Hello, darling child, how was school today?” “67!”) A perfectly timed 67 signals that you’re part of an in-group, and if you’re already using its emerging spinoffs six-sendy and 41, you might be even cooler.
Perhaps the most defining feature of 67 is that it’s impossible to define. It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. In other words, it has all the hallmarks of brainrot.
It’s the logical endpoint of being perpetually online, scrolling endlessly, consuming content fed to users by algorithms trained by other algorithms. And what are we left with in the wake of this relentless sensory overload? 67.
Still, it remains meaningful to the people who use it because of the connection it fosters. 67 shows the speed at which a new word can rocket around the world as a rising generation enters the global conversation.
Other words that made Dictionary.com’s 2025 shortlist include:
- Agentic
- Aura farming
- Broligarchy
- Clanker
- The Dynamite Emoji (aka “Taylor ‘n’ Travis”)
- Gen Z Stare
- Kiss Cam
- Overtourism
- Tariff
- Tradwife
What counts as a word? Do we consider slang terms to be “real” words? To learn more about our approach to adding words to Dictionary.com, click here.
Previous Words of the Year include:
- Demure (2024)
- Hallucinate (2023)
- Woman (2022)
- Allyship (2021)
- Oandemic (2020)
Whether you think it’s deep or just plain confusing, one thing’s for sure—this year’s Word of the Year perfectly sums up the weird, wonderful, and ever-changing language of 2025.
Last Update: Oct 30, 2025 10:14 am CDT
