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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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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

This cohort, broadly known as the Lost Generation, would become central to the formalization of the American canon.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025

That stagnation eventually persisted so long that some began to refer to it as the "Lost Generation."

From Salon • Jul. 30, 2023

"As a kid, I wanted to be part of the Lost Generation who came to France. Hang out at the Coupole with Picasso and Giacometti," he told the paper.

From Reuters • Sep. 12, 2022

There is France, where he mingled with John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald as a charter member of the Lost Generation.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2019

Known as the Lost Generation, writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton, and John Dos Passos expressed their hopelessness and despair by skewering the middle class in their work.

From Textbooks • Dec. 30, 2014