Gay Nineties

American  

plural noun

1. the 1890s in the United States, a period regarded nostalgically as a decade of prosperous comfort and associated with gaslights, early bicycles and cars, and the Gibson girl.

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Example Sentences

The Kaufman and James recordings sound more like something out of the buttoned-up Gay Nineties than the libertine Roaring ’20s or the Big Band Era.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026

As a teenager, she followed her married sister to Washington and embraced the cultural and social life of the booming Gay Nineties city.

From Washington Post • Mar. 29, 2023

To begin with, there’s the 1890s setting, a period known in the last century as the Gay Nineties and still evocative of happy opulence.

From New York Times • Aug. 2, 2013

Bill’s Gay Nineties was a very old, very awesome New York piano bar.

From Time • Jan. 10, 2013

It was a picture of a Gay Nineties couple on a bicycle built for two.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut