Hipster

How to spell hipster

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hipster

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hipster mean?

1. nounA young person who follows fashionable but self consciously alternative tastes in music, clothing, and lifestyle.

Hipster in a sentence

• The new coffee shop is run by a bearded hipster who roasts his own beans.

• Every hipster on the street seemed to be carrying a vintage record under one arm.

Where does hipster come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word grew out of the American slang adjective 'hip', meaning aware, knowing, or up to date, which was current in jazz circles by the 1930s and 1940s. To that base English added the old agent suffix '-ster', the same ending that gives 'gangster', 'trickster', and 'youngster', producing a label for someone steeped in the cool, knowing culture of the day. In its first life a hipster was a devotee of bebop jazz and its associated style, and the term was popularised in mid twentieth century American writing about that scene. After fading for decades, it was revived in the early 2000s to describe young urban people who cultivate self consciously alternative tastes in music, fashion, and food. The origin of the underlying 'hip' itself is uncertain, with several competing theories and no agreed source, which is why the deeper history is hazier than the recent revival.

How the word is built

• hip (fashionable, in the know)
• -ster (agent suffix meaning a person associated with something)