Why? The word was accidentally invented by President Donald Trump in a tweet just after midnight ET.

When you went to bed Tuesday night you hadn't heard of "covfefe." No one had. But by early Wednesday, Twitter was abuzz about little else.

The Tweeter-in-Chief baffles the twittersphere with new word "covfefe".

Instantly broadcast around the world, the message confused, delighted and horrified many of Trump's 31 million followers.

People had questions. What does it mean? Is it a secret code? How do we pronounce it? And why did it take almost six hours for Trump or one of his advisers to delete it?

The message was finally removed at around 5:50 a.m. ET. But until then there had been no follow-up or explanation for the original message.

Just "covfefe."

More from NBC:

Anti-Trump protests to focus on alleged Russia links

Donald Trump's border wall: A 'progress' report

Kushner asked to 'lay low' after Russia-related reports, source says

The word quickly became a trending topic across the United States and Europe.

Inevitably, memes began to spring up lampooning what appeared to be an unfinished sentence and a typo for the word "coverage" — or was it?

@mskristinawong: @realDonaldTrump This is #covfefe translated from Russian.

Others wondered if "covfefe" had another meaning...

@CharlesMBlow: "And just before you serve it, you hit it with a dash of #Covfefe"

...or was it some revolutionary form of communication that had gone over everyone's heads?

@JoeyGreaber: Winner. #covfefe

The word sparked several parody accounts, which quickly invented their own "covfefe" folklore and backstory.

@ShahakShapira: This is everything #covfefe

...or was there another explanation?

@jbouie: I like to imagine that "covfefe" is the exact moment someone tackled Trump and wrestled the phone out of his hand. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/869766994899468288 …

Others were already eyeing up potential retail opportunities.

@christoq: Knock on *45's door: "Mr. Resident, would you like the good news first or the bad?" "Good news." "One of your tweets went viral..." #covfefe

@olivia_vivienne: maybe he's born with it maybe it's #covfefe

It was far from the first time Trump has been guilty of firing off late-night typo-strewn messages from his official account — although it may have been the most spectacular.

Away from the hilarity, many wondered why the message took hours to be deleted. Would he or his aides be as slow to remove a mistaken message that was inadvertently problematic in its content?

In the end, Trump finally posted a follow-up message that appeared to laugh at his own mistake.

@realDonaldTrump: Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!

But that hasn't stopped thousands of people from continuing to enjoy "covfefe."

@TrumpDraws: covfefe