Compound ofgeneration +X(used to represent an unknown quantity or unknown value). Sense 2 (“the post-baby boom generation”) was popularized by the novelGeneration X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991) by the Canadian author and artistDouglas Coupland (born 1961).[1][2]
GenerationX(originally Canada, Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, Ireland)
- (originally) Ageneration ofpeople whosefuture isuncertain; alost generation.[from 1950s]
1964, Charles Hamblett, Jane Deverson,Generation X,→OCLC, page191:When historians evaluate the contribution ofGeneration X one theme will recur over and over again, and that is the rage and revulsion handed from Father to Son.
- (specifically) The generation of peopleborn after thebaby boom thatfollowedWorld War II, especially those born from themid 1960s toearly 1980s, sometimescharacterized ascynical,disaffected,lackingdirection inlife, andunwilling totake partfully insociety.
- Synonyms:MTV generation,(dated)13th Gen
- Coordinate terms:boomers,Generation Y,Generation Z
generation of people born after the baby boom that followed World War II
- ^“Generation X,n.”, inOED Online
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, March 2021;“Generation X,n.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022. - ^Eric Partridge (2005), “Generation X; Gen X”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors,The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume1 (A–I), London; New York, N.Y.:Routledge,→ISBN,page853.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, March 2021;“Generation X,n.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.
Generation X on Wikipedia.Wikipedia