beatniks

Noun

beatnik (plural beatniks or (rare) beatniki)

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...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...
2. 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...

   Synonyms:

   beat