beatnik
noun/ˈbiːtnɪk/
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.
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.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, →ISBN, page 318:
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, page 21, column 5:
- 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?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’ Press, published 2005, →ISBN, chapter 3 (Before the Rock Club: A historical survey), section 4 (The 1970s), page 31:
1 more example
- 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:
- Derived terms
- beatnikery, beatnikish, beatnikism, Bootnik, jazznik, peacenik, wordnik