Oregon Trail Generation

proper noun

A transitional microgeneration born from the mid- to late 1970s to the early to mid-1980s, characterized by its pre-Internet childhood and online adolescence and early adulthood.

Meanings

Oregon Trail Generation1

proper nounthe Oregon Trail Generation

alternative Oregon Trail generation

  1. USA transitional microgeneration born from the mid- to late 1970s to the early to mid-1980s, characterized by its pre-Internet childhood and online adolescence and early adulthood.

    "I'm thirty-four. I claim Oregon Trail generation." "What?" Ellery laughed outright. "There is no Oregon Trail generation."

    2018, Kathleen Brooks, Saving Shadows, unnumbered page
    2 more examples

    Now our teacher candidates are almost 100% members of the Oregon Trail Generation. They answer email on their iPhones and play computer games on their cell phones when they are bored.

    2009, Rhonda Christensen, “Forward”, in Digital Simulations for Improving Education: Learning Through Artificial Teaching Environments, page xix

    Unlike the millennial generation that followed us— the “digital natives” who can never remember a time before computers—the Oregon Trail Generation grew up on the cusp of changes that transformed modern life.

    2021, Melanie C. Ross, Evangelical Worship: An American Mosaic, page 18

Oregon Trail generation2

proper noun
  1. alternativeAlternative form of Oregon Trail Generation.

Origin

Coined in reference to the educational computer game The Oregon Trail (1985) that members of the generation frequently played as children.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Oregon Trail Generation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Oregon%20Trail%20Generation

MLA

“Oregon Trail Generation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Oregon%20Trail%20Generation. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Oregon Trail Generation,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Oregon%20Trail%20Generation.

Source: Oregon Trail Generation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.