67 is the word that everybody needs right now.
On the surface, 67 may seem kind of ridiculous, but it really is not. Saying it puts a smile on our faces and hearing it lifts us up when we need it, and it makes us laugh and smile, which is always nice.
67 is like that feeling you get with candy at Halloween, but in this case, there’s no candy involved, and it doesn’t just happen at Halloween; it happens every day.
Sara Behnke, AP Literature and Creative Writing teacher, believes that even though words are the same, how people use them, and which ones they use, represent how society is feeling at the time.
“We don’t speak the way Shakespeare spoke. But the way Shakespeare wrote his plays was the way people spoke at that time, because he was writing for massive audiences,” Sarah Behnke said. “Words are like a snapshot in time of what language is doing.”
So it should not come as a surprise that dictionary.com selected 67 as its Word of the Year for 2025.
67 is an interjection, a slang word that has many different meanings.
It is commonly used to fill anything missing with 67.
Don’t know the answer? It could be this, or it could be that. 67.
Not feeling healthy, yet not sick? 67.
Not great but not terrible. 67.
What time do you get up for school? 6 or 7. 67.
It makes sense that the hardest math homework problems are usually 6 and 7. 67.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact origin of the word. Some say it started out with people saying it repeatedly because they thought it was catchy. People also used the term 67 as a filler word to try to be funny. Charlotte Hornets player, LaMelo Ball (who is 6’7”) also says it came from him.
This writer first heard the word used from a boy who shouted it out in a basketball game. Then it became popular all around the school every day.
Some CSD students have strong opinions.
“My thoughts on 67 is that it’s overused, cringe, and dragged out, but used to be funny,” Santiago Gutierrez (‘29) said.
But is 67 being selected as the Word of the Year really representative of our language and where our society is today?
Different dictionaries have different statuses, and this selection is more cultural.
“When I was growing up as a student, the Internet was not around, and we were never allowed in grade school to use the Webster’s Dictionary. You were only allowed to use the Oxford Dictionary, because that’s considered the dictionary of the English language,” Behnke said. “So, dictionary.com in academia would never be acceptable. It is more like cultural. It’s a much lower brow level of a dictionary than an Oxford Dictionary.”
Speaking of culture, and as a sign of the times, 67 has evolved from just a word to much more. People have created a 67 handshake and a gesture where your hands go up and down alternatively.
Last year’s dictionary.com Word of the Year, brainrot, had none of that.
