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'67' named 'Word of the Year' and it's made people incredibly angry

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67” has been crowned the word of the year by Dictionary.com for 2025, and people have thoughts.

If you’re chronically online, or know someone who is Gen Alpha or Gen Z, chances are you’ve heard the phrase “67” (pronounced six-seven) flying around.

The term is one of the latest pieces of brain rot to sweep the internet and enter the mainstream lexicon of young people, confusing those of us who like to understand what words mean because it seems to have no meaning at all.

According to teacher and “OG Student Translator” TikToker, Mr. Lindsay: “There is no real meaning to it. It is a number that is fun to say, popularised by a meme with the hand motions, and it just doesn’t mean anything.”

So, when news broke that a word which has no actual meaning (and doesn’t even contain any letters) has been named word of the year, some people were left extremely confused, and even angry.

“IT’S NOT EVEN A WORD,” someone complained.

Another shared a Friends reference, writing: “THAT’S NOT EVEN A WORD!!!!!!!”

Someone joked: “The alphabet finding out that a number won ‘word of the year’.”

“67… is a NUMBER how can a NUMBER be the WORD of the F**KING YEAR,” asked another.

One person argued: “We need to lock the kids in a room full of books and no screens at all for 75 weeks at least- this can’t be f**king it man.”

Someone else said: “I can feel myself turn into an old man.”

Many were confused by “the concept of a number being word of the year”.

Another said: “Allow me to be a grumpy middle-aged woman for a moment:

“Lots of words of the year are controversial, like ‘rizz’ or ‘brain rot’ or ‘bling’, but they still mean something. ‘67’ is literally just a noise that 11-year-olds make, it doesn’t communicate anything.”

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