beatnik
/ˈbiːtnɪk/
beatnik noun: 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.
Noun
beatnik (plural beatniks or (rare) beatniki)
- 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...1963, George Sherman, “Soviet Youth: Myth and Reality”, in Erik H[omburger] Erikson, editor, The Challenge of Youth (Doubleday Anchor Books; A438), Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, published 1965...
- 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.2003 May 25, Nick Paton Walsh, “Macca’s back in the USSR – a few years late”, in The Observer, number 11,041, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Aug 2013...
- 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...2004, Yngvar Bordewich Steinholt, “The twists and turns of popular music policies”, in Rock in the Reservation: Songs from the Leningrad Rock Club 1981-86, New York, N.Y.: Mass Media Music Scholars’...
- Synonyms:
- beat
Examples of beatnik in a sentence
- 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?2004, Yngvar Bordewich Steinholt, “The twists and turns of popular music policies”, in Rock in the Reservation: Songs from the Leningrad...
- In tight black jeans and black polo-neck sweater he reminded her of an old-fashioned beatnik.2014, Ian McEwan, The Children Act, Penguin Random House (2018), page 185:
Synonyms of beatnik
Forms of beatnik
| plural | beatniks |
|---|---|
| plural (rare) | beatniki |
Origin of beatnik
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.
Words formed from beatnik
Questions about beatnik
- What does beatnik mean?
- Beatnik means 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.
- How do you use beatnik in a sentence?
- 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?
- What part of speech is beatnik?
- Beatnik is a noun.
- How do you pronounce beatnik?
- Beatnik is pronounced /ˈbiːtnɪk/.
- What is the plural of beatnik?
- The plural of beatnik is beatniks.
Words near beatnik in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beatnik (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-beatnik.wav.
Cite this entry: “beatnik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beatnik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.