hippies

Cultural  

1. Members of a movement of cultural protest that began in the United States in the 1960s and affected Europe before fading in the 1970s. Hippies were bound together by rejection of many standard American customs and social and political views (see counterculture). The hippies often cultivated an unkempt image in their dress and grooming and were known for practices such as communal living, free love, and the use of marijuana and other drugs. Although hippies were usually opposed to involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, their movement was fundamentally a cultural rather than a political protest. (See Woodstock; compare beatniks.)

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Example Sentences

Around the same time, George Ohsawa’s book Zen Macrobiotics introduced to the West the concept of a macrobiotic diet, which hippies popularized.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 10, 2026

"Me, I wasn't a hippy back then, but I knew a lot of hippies," he says with his characteristic laugh.

From BBC • Aug. 9, 2025

In fact, said Bunny McDiarmid—then a 28-year-old deckhand sailing her first mission on the Warrior—they were hippies who happened to be very skilled at their jobs.

From Slate • Jul. 22, 2025

It would rather binge-watch thousands of hours of trashy TV shows than deal with the dithering crew of space hippies to which it’s been assigned.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 11, 2025

There were families sheltered in cheap tent trailers, aging hippies in Day-Glo vans, Charles Manson look-alikes sleeping in rusted-out Studebakers that hadn’t turned over since Eisenhower was in the White House.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer