’67’ is Dictionary.com’s phrase of the yr. What’s it? : NPR

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Chris Delmas/AFP by way of Getty Pictures Dictionary.com has topped a set of numbers as its 2025 phrase of the yr.

It says it reserves that distinction for a phrase that displays "social tendencies and international occasions that outlined that yr" and "reveals the tales we inform about ourselves and the way we have modified over the yr." The phrase of the yr is each viral vernacular and a linguistic time capsule (final yr's, for instance, was "demure").

This yr, that honor goes to "67" — pronounced "six seven" — a slang time period that is been delighting youngsters, exasperating lecturers and befuddling adults for months.

It has its roots within the track "Doot Doot (6 7)", which Philadelphia-based rapper Skrilla launched final December.

"The way in which that change brrt, I do know he dyin' … 6-7, I simply bipped proper on the freeway," Skrilla says, utilizing a verb that in hip-hop can describe something from a automotive smash-and-grab to easy driving to normal swag.

But it surely was the phrase "67" that took off. It was popularized on-line largely by means of viral TikToks of basketball highlights together with of LaMelo Ball, the Charlotte Hornets level guard who occurs to face 6 ft, 7 inches tall.

Then different big-name basketball gamers, together with LeBron James and Paige Bueckers, began utilizing the time period in interviews. It unfold to different sports activities and, earlier than lengthy, colleges throughout the nation. Gen Alpha sometimes delivers it in a sluggish drawl with an accompanying hand movement: elevating one upturned palm at a time for every quantity, as if weighing two gadgets.

"Now it's one thing that you just're simply attempting to make use of to get any individual to reference the quantity 67 like … 'How tall are you?'… 'what time is it?' … 'what's that?'" center college trainer and comic Philip Lindsay, who first posted concerning the development again in February, stated in an August Instagram video. "There may be actually no circumstance the place a child may not say 67."

Dictionary.com says searches for 67 surged over the summer time, growing "greater than sixfold" since June with no indicators of stopping. The time period has impressed musical mashups, a latest South Park plotline and loads of (considerably cringe) Halloween costumes.

"67 exhibits the velocity at which a brand new phrase can rocket all over the world as a rising technology enters the worldwide dialog," its announcement reads.

Lindsay approves of the selection, telling NPR over electronic mail that 67 is "undoubtedly THE phrase of 2025." He says that whereas youngsters are inclined to lose curiosity in memes over time, particularly as they transfer throughout generations, this one has held endurance for practically your entire yr — although its new accolade may doubtlessly change that.

"I'd think about after this designation and extra individuals utilizing it, that it will begin to develop into cringe to the youthful technology," he wrote. "Nonetheless, I do assume that as a result of they're numbers which are seen in every single place, it will reside on for fairly a while in lecture rooms and within the minds of Gen Alpha."

However what does it truly imply?

Is dependent upon who you ask Dictionary.com says: "Maybe probably the most defining function of 67 is that it is not possible to outline."

"It is meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical," it provides. "It is the logical endpoint of being perpetually on-line, scrolling endlessly, consuming content material fed to customers by algorithms skilled by different algorithms."

In different phrases, the defining world of the yr has no actual which means or definition.

Even Skrilla, the rapper who coined the time period, advised XXL journal this week that he left it deliberately obscure, although it initially had a unfavourable connotation.

"67 modified from a unfavourable factor to a optimistic," he stated. "[It's] hundreds of thousands of different issues for different individuals. All people obtained they personal which means to it, 'trigger I by no means put an actual which means on it."

Ball, the 6-foot-7 basketball participant, equally struggled to outline it when requested in a September TikTok.

"It is actually nothing although, for actual," the 24-year-old stated. "Simply six seven."

Nonetheless, as Dictionary.com says, the time period's which means lies within the connection it fosters. It is principally one massive inside joke, a minimum of for members of a sure age.

"67 is meaningless in content material, but it surely's not meaningless in feeling," parenting skilled Becky Kennedy stated in an Instagram video earlier this month. "Take into consideration if you had been a child. What's extra highly effective than feeling such as you belong?"

Evidently, that feeling is highly effective sufficient to propel 67 to the phrase of the yr — beating out a shortlist of contenders together with broligarchy, clanker, tradwife and tariff.

Lindsay says he is gotten "numerous" messages from mother and father who've linked with their youngsters "over a 6-7 and have been in a position to have significant conversations because of this." He hopes others will embrace it equally.

"Each trending meme or phrase is a connection level between adults and the adolescents of their life," he provides. "My recommendation is all the time, know what's going on and use it to bridge gaps with the children in your life."