What Does "6 7" Mean?
A deliberately meaningless chant, roughly "so-so" or "maybe this, maybe that", usually shouted with both palms up.
Not to be confused with: The numbers 6 and 7 in any ordinary context — a score, a height, a date, a bus route. The slang sense only applies when the two numbers are said together as a chant, usually with the palms-up gesture.
6 7 Meaning, Explained
6 7 is the clearest example of slang whose whole function is to mean nothing. Dictionary.com, which made it Word of the Year for 2025, describes it as purposely nonsensical and about being in on the absurdity rather than communicating anything. Where it does carry a sense, it is something like "so-so" or "could go either way", and it is almost always delivered with a gesture: both hands raised palms-up, tipping side to side like a pair of scales. It spread fastest in classrooms and at sporting events, where a group can shout it in unison. That group-chant quality matters — it is a call-and-response, not a word you use in a sentence. Teachers reported it as the single most disruptive phrase of the 2025 school year, which only accelerated it.
How to Use 6 7 in a Sentence
These are representative sentences showing how the term is used in each place, written for this page — not quotations from specific posts.
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“How was the test? — 6 7.”
The closest 6 7 gets to a real meaning: a shrug. Not good, not bad, and not worth elaborating on.
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“Someone said 67 in class and the entire row started doing the hands.”
Describes the chant spreading through a room. The "hands" are the palms-up seesaw gesture that goes with it.
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“Please stop saying 6 7 I am begging you.”
Typical adult-exasperation post. Much of the phrase's staying power comes from how irritating it is to people outside the joke.
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“He's literally 6 7 though.”
A callback to the basketball origin, used when someone's listed height is actually six foot seven — the joke being that here the number means something.
Where "6 7" Came From
The phrase comes from "Doot Doot (6 7)" by the Philadelphia rapper Skrilla, released in late 2024. Clips of the track were paired with basketball footage on TikTok and Instagram from around October 2024, and the pairing that stuck was with Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, who is listed at six feet seven inches. From there it detached from both the song and the player and became a free-floating chant. Dictionary.com selected it as its 2025 Word of the Year, with lexicographer Steve Johnson noting that few terms captured the year's cultural mood as well. The selection was widely covered, and just as widely met with confusion from adults, which is roughly the reaction the phrase is designed to produce.
How confident is this? The Skrilla track is well documented as the source of the audio, but exactly how the LaMelo Ball height association took hold is not. It is reported consistently across news coverage and is plausible, yet the trail runs through untracked reposts rather than any single identifiable video, so the height link should be read as the widely accepted account rather than a documented first use.
Sources: dictionary.com · cbsnews.com
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In plain English
How was the test? [meh, who knows]. That [silly] question was pure [coolly detached]
Terms found
- 6 7 — A deliberately meaningless chant, roughly "so-so" or "maybe this, maybe that", usually shouted with both palms up.
- Skibidi — A nonsense word that can mean cool, bad, or nothing at all, depending entirely on the tone it is said in.
- Sigma — Someone successful and self-reliant who ignores the social hierarchy — now used far more often as a joke than sincerely.
No slang from this dictionary found in that message yet.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does 6 7 actually mean?
Mostly nothing, on purpose. At most it works like a shrug — "so-so", "either way". Dictionary.com's own definition leans on its nonsense value rather than any settled sense.
Why do people do the hand gesture?
Both palms face up and tip side to side, like weighing two options. It reinforces the "could go either way" reading and makes the phrase work as a group chant.
Is 6 7 still used in 2026?
Yes, though it peaked during the 2025 school year. It has settled into the background of Gen Alpha speech rather than disappearing, helped by winning a Word of the Year title.
Is 6 7 offensive?
No. It carries no insult or adult content. The complaints about it are entirely about disruption in classrooms, not about anything the phrase actually says.
Last reviewed 2026-07-31. 628 words of entry-specific content.