Meaning of Beatnik | Babel Free

Definitions

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.
2. A person associated with the Beat Generation of the 1950s and 1960s or its style.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“The Beatles first surfaced in the USSR in 1964, when the style of dress of the ‘Beatniki’ was enthusiastically copied.”

“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 gobbing impersonators of Johnny Rotten?”

“In tight black jeans and black polo-neck sweater he reminded her of an old-fashioned beatnik.”

CEFR level