hipster

Definition

A person who is keenly interested in the latest trends or fashions.

Etymology

From hip + -ster. First attested for someone carrying something on their hip in the U.S. in the 1920s. Attested as a variant of hepster in the 1940s, for a follower of the latest fashions/trends/styles.

Example Sentences

• "c. 1954, Jack Kerouac, Untitled poem, in Book of Sketches, 1952-57, Penguin, 2006, p. 239, I, poor French Canadian Ti Jean become / a big sophisticated hipster esthete in / the homosexual arts […]"
• "Clare grapples with the idea that she, a well-dressed city hipster, will soon be in the boondocks raising a child with two men who are as much in love with each other as with her: "I'm not this unusual," she stammers. "It's just my hair.""
• "Donald Fagen and Walter Becker seem like the kind of late-1960s hypercerebral born-cynical East Coast hipsters who are often found valorizing authenticity in aesthetic expression."