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Beatnik

//ˈbiːtnɪk// noun

Definitions

Noun

1
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.
"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."
2
a member of the beat generation; a nonconformist in dress and behavior wordnet
3
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."

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.

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