The Six / The 6ix
Toronto's most famous nickname. Refers to the 1998 amalgamation of six municipalities — old Toronto, North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, York and East York — into one city, and doubles as a nod to the 416 area code. Toronto rapper Jimmy Prime used it in street culture first; Drake globalized it with his 2015 album 'Views From The 6.'
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How it's used
Words like this are about place — the specific streets, boundaries and nicknames that tell you exactly which part of the GTA someone means.
“You coming back to the 6 for the summer?”
Where it comes from
Origin: GTA amalgamation history, popularized by Drake. It's tied to Toronto's music and sports culture more than to a specific immigrant-language root — see our "from the block to global" section for how that side of Toronto slang spread.
Sources
Specific source for this entry: The Globe and Mail — "We The 6: Why the name Drake gave us is here to stay". General research sources for the whole dictionary are listed in SOURCES.md.