The story
Often attributed to Herbert Huncke, from beat (“exhausted”), with Jack Kerouac later claiming it derived from beatific instead.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
beat generation
Today it means: A group of countercultural American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their most important works are Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959). Full definition →