The number six comes after five and before seven. It's written as “6” and represents a quantity you can count on one hand plus one more finger, or see when you roll the highest number on a standard die.

Six appears everywhere in our world. Insects have six legs, which scientists use to distinguish them from spiders (which have eight). A hockey team puts six players on the ice at once. Guitar players strum six strings to create their music. Boxes and cubes have six faces, which is why dice work so perfectly as cubes.

In mathematics, six is special because it's a perfect number: the numbers that divide evenly into it (1, 2, and 3) add up to six itself. Mathematicians have known about this property for over 2,000 years.

The phrase six of one, half a dozen of the other means two choices are basically the same, since a half dozen equals six. If someone is at sixes and sevens, they're confused or disorganized. And deep six means to get rid of something completely.