Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007
The word you've selected hasn't found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion
in our online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it's now been awarded—might just improve its chances. This year's winning word first
became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker
language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by
double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again
stemming from the gaming community.
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"