Youthquake

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A noticeable shift in society or culture in response to the activities or tastes of younger members of the culture. informal

    "Britain produced many of the first temblors of the youthquake. There were the elegantly dressed but often vicious Teddy boys of the late 1950s. There were the gentler Mods and the tough leather-jacketed, working-class rockers in the '60s."

Example

More examples

"Britain produced many of the first temblors of the youthquake. There were the elegantly dressed but often vicious Teddy boys of the late 1950s. There were the gentler Mods and the tough leather-jacketed, working-class rockers in the '60s."

Etymology

From youth + quake, by analogy with earthquake. Coined by American magazine editor Diana Vreeland in 1965.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.