a United States youth subculture of the 1950s; rejected possessions or regular work or traditional dress; for communal living and psychedelic drugs and anarchism; favored modern forms of jazz (e g , bebop)
Beatniks were young people in the late 1950's who rejected traditional ways of living, dressing, and behaving. People sometimes use the word beatnik to refer to anyone who lives in an unconventional way. a beatnik art student. one of a group of young people in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who did not accept the values of society and showed this by their clothes and the way they lived