Lost Generation

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.

Lost Generation

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

lost generation

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.

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of Lost Generation¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Jake and his friends stayed at the Hotel Montoya, a fictional stand-in for the long-gone Hotel Quintana, where Juanito Quintana, Hemingway’s friend and fellow bullfight aficionado, once welcomed the lost generation.

Read more on Salon

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

Read more on Salon

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

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

With Gaza's education system shattered by two years of gruelling war, UNICEF's regional director says he fears for a "lost generation" of children wandering ruined streets with nothing to do.

Read more on Barron's

"If we don't start a real transition for all children in February, we will enter a fourth year. And then we can talk about a lost generation."

Read more on Barron's