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beatnik

noun
/ˈbiːtnɪk/

Etymology

Coined by American columnist Herb Caen in 1958. From beat (generation) + -nik (“person who exemplifies or endorses something”). Compare jazznik. The suffix, a cutesy or ironic use of the Russian suffix -ник (-nik), experienced a surge of use in English coinages for nicknames and diminutives after the 1957 Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite.

Definitions

  1. A person who dresses in a manner that is not socially acceptable and is supposed to…

    A person who dresses in a manner that is not socially acceptable and is supposed to reject conventional norms of thought and behavior; nonconformist in dress and behavior.

  2. A person associated with the Beat Generation of the 1950s and 1960s or its style.

    • The Beatles first surfaced in the USSR in 1964, when the style of dress of the ‘Beatniki’ was enthusiastically copied.
    • In tight black jeans and black polo-neck sweater he reminded her of an old-fashioned beatnik.

The neighborhood

Derived

beatnikery, beatnikish, beatnikism, Bootnik, jazznik, peacenik, wordnik

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for beatnik. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA