beatnik

Definition

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.

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.

Example Sentences

• "The drive against the stilyagi has hampered but not destroyed the development of (Soviet-style) “beatniki” among the younger artistic and literary intelligentsia. […] The tendency of Soviet “beatniki” is to emulate what they consider the Left-Bank bohemianism of Paris. It is a faint whisper of a similar movement among young East European intellectuals, particularly in Poland, to make ultrasophistication their mark of separateness from “proletarian” society."
• "The Beatles first surfaced in the USSR in 1964, when the style of dress of the ‘Beatniki’ was enthusiastically copied."
• "Worrying news from the west upset Soviet authorities even further. Punk rock was already causing trouble in Poland and other east-European countries. Did someone in the administration fear a repetition of Beatlemania, with decent, twist-dancing beatniki being replaced by pogo-dancing, sneering and gobbing impersonators of Johnny Rotten?"

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