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• Lost Generation
  Lost Generation

  noun

  the generation of men and women who came of age during or immediately following World War I: viewed, as a result of their war experiences and the social upheaval of the time, as cynical, disillusioned, and without cultural or emotional stability.
• lost generation
  lost generation

  The young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life. Gertrude Stein is usually credited with popularizing the expression.

Lost Generation

American  

noun

1. the generation of men and women who came of age during or immediately following World War I: viewed, as a result of their war experiences and the social upheaval of the time, as cynical, disillusioned, and without cultural or emotional stability.

2. a group of American writers of this generation, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Dos Passos.

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Lost Generation British  

noun

1. the large number of talented young men killed in World War I

2. the generation of writers, esp American authors such as Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway, active after World War I

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lost generation Cultural  

1. The young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life. Gertrude Stein is usually credited with popularizing the expression.

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Discover More

The characters in the book The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, are examples of the lost generation.

Etymology

Origin of Lost Generation

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

The experts are talking about a "lost generation" as more than one million under-24-year-olds are left in limbo, without a job or a training course that should lead them to one.

From BBC • May 28, 2026

"I would agree with many experts who say children who have been caught up in the grinding wheels of this reform risk becoming a lost generation," he said.

From Barron's • Feb. 6, 2026

The study cautions that Gaza faces a serious risk of a "lost" generation due to the combined educational, physical, and psychological toll of the war.

From Science Daily • Jan. 11, 2026

We sit on a bench and let it wash over us, wondering what ghosts of the lost generation would make of this, our Spain.

From Salon • Nov. 8, 2025

Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck