hipster

plural hipsters · alternative dated hepster

1. A person who is hip, being keenly interested in the latest trends or fashions.First known use earlier 20th c.

   c. 1954, Jack Kerouac, Untitled poem, in Book of Sketches, 1952-57, Penguin, 2006, p. 239, I, poor French Canadian Ti Jean become / a big sophisticated hipster esthete in / the homosexual arts […]

   4 more examples

   The other people in the urine-odored hall stood silently waiting for the hipster to disappear between the tables, to be dropped there by the stocky white detective.

   1970, Wally Ferris, Across 110th, page 90

   Clare grapples with the idea that she, a well-dressed city hipster, will soon be in the boondocks raising a child with two men who are as much in love with each other as with her: "I'm not this unusual," she stammers. "It's just my hair."

   1991 August 10, Chris Nealon, “Get A Life”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 4, page 10

   Donald Fagen and Walter Becker seem like the kind of late-1960s hypercerebral born-cynical East Coast hipsters who are often found valorizing authenticity in aesthetic expression.

   2008 June 16, Ben Ratliff, “Pop Veterans Still Pumping Anti-Charisma”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 09 Feb 2021

   And his conclusion is that in a vast range of scenarios, the hipster population always undergoes a kind of phase transition in which members become synchronized with each other in opposing the mainstream. In other words, the hipster effect is the inevitable outcome of the behavior of large numbers of people.

   2019 February 28, “The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same”, in MIT Technology Review, archived from the original on 04 Apr 2025

   Synonyms: hepster, hippie, trendite, Corinthian, faddist, fashionable, fashionist, fashionista

   1. broadlychiefly music fandomA person who rejects mainstream culture; an anti-conformist.

      Synonyms: hepster, hippie, trendite, Corinthian, faddist, fashionable, fashionist, fashionista

2. A member of a Bohemian counterculture.

   Near-synonym: hippie

   Synonyms: hippie

3. An aficionado of jazz who considers themselves to be hip.

   Near-synonym: hippie

   1 more example

   Heading home from a party, two hipsters, completely stoned, pause to snuggle on a park bench. A fire engine roars by, bells clanging, sirens screaming. The boy flips. “Solid, doll,” he murmurs, “they’re playing our song!”

   1952 September 29, “"BOP VOCABULARY" section, inside of "That Crazy Bop Joke Craze"”, in LIFE Magazine, New York, U.S., page 69

   Synonyms: hepcat, hippie

4. A follower of a fashion style prevalent in the 2000s and 2010s, typically associated with old-fashioned clothing, thick-rimmed glasses, and beards for men, and with alternative music and trendy food and drink.

   I'll be the one rocking hipster glasses and clutching a cappuccino.

   2017 September 22, Tommy Tighe, The Catholic Hipster Handbook: Rediscovering Cool Saints, Forgotten Prayers, and Other Weird but Sacred Stuff, Ave Maria Press, →ISBN, page 87

   3 more examples

   The 2005 UK TV series Nathan Barley is seen today as the proto-hipster parody. It was recently described by The Guardian as follows, '10 years on, it looks more like a documentary about the future.'

   2017 September 13, Steven Threadgold, Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles, Routledge, →ISBN, page 1895

   The word sourdough isn't a protected term. Like craft beer, gin and yoga, it has become an expression of one-upmanship among the hipster elite and something of a middle-class, sabbatical endeavour.

   2021 April 1, James Morton, Sourdough: Slow Down, Make Bread, Hardie Grant Publishing, →ISBN

   On the parade on Hackney Road near where he lives, there was one tiny hipster coffee bar in 2010; there are now three on the same 100-yard parade.

   2021 June 3, Jennifer Kavanagh, Let Me Take You by the Hand: True Tales from London's Streets, Hachette UK, →ISBN

5. USobsoleteProhibitionA person who wears a hip flask (of alcohol).

   (from Kentucky backcountry moonshine)

   Synonyms: vial villain, gentleman from Kentucky

6. UShistoricalobsoleteA dancer, particularly a female one during the 1930s.
7. Underwear with an elastic waistband at hip level.

present singular third person hipsters · participle present hipstering · participle past hipstered · past hipstered · alternative dated hepster

1. informalintransitiveTo behave like a hipster.

   The hipsters are hipstering, the businessmen are businessing, the parents are parenting, the children are childrening, and the black teenagers are calling each other niggers.

   2011, Martin Bodek, The Year of Bad Behavior: Bearing Witness to the Uncouthiest of Humanity, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   But it was a white staff member of a reform school who gave Claude Brown the first notion he ever had that there might be something in the world besides dope and sex and hipstering.

   2000, Eugene Davidson, Reflections on a Disruptive Decade: Essays on the Sixties, page 139

   If you're up for a night of hipstering, this is a good spot to begin - a grungy joint that nevertheless hosts a solid varying roster of blues, funk, reggae, rock and indie bands.

   2017, The Rough Guide to the USA, →ISBN

2. informalintransitiveTo dress or decorate in a hip fashion.

   I nudged Theo. “I give him three hours before he's hipstered it back up again.

   2014, Tellulah Darling, My Life From Hell, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Claire's permission, to be going out with this fine, circumspect woman, all hipstered out and cowboy booted, without a chaperone.

   2009, Jill Malone, A Field Guide to Deception, →ISBN, page 135

   Victorian frock coats and neckwear, with facial hair that would make any hipster contemplate giving up hipstering and taking up...

   2019, Michael Pryor, Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town, →ISBN