zeitgeist

noun

zeit·geist ˈtsīt-ˌgīst

ˈzīt-

often capitalized

: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era

Did you know?

Scholars have long maintained that each era has a unique spirit, a nature or climate that sets it apart from all others. In German, such a spirit is known as Zeitgeist, from the German words Zeit, meaning "time," and Geist, meaning "spirit" or "ghost." (This same Geist, when combined with poltern, meaning "to knock," led to the English word poltergeist referring to a noisy ghost.) It is common nowadays to read about something "tapping into" or "capturing" the zeitgeist, as doing so often entails popularity or profitability in appealing to a great many people, though sometimes the zeitgeist of a particular time and place is only recognized in hindsight, either due to nostalgia or with the benefit of (one hopes) greater wisdom.

Examples of zeitgeist in a Sentence

His songs perfectly captured the zeitgeist of 1960s America.

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

But her husband, who some blamed for orchestrating the attention-grabbing spectacle, suggested it was intended to steal thunder from the awards show in the zeitgeist. —

Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News, 6 Feb. 2025 Today, fans and community members are shaping content, funding projects and even owning pieces of the cultural zeitgeist — all thanks to NFTs, tribal communities and the storytelling revolution led by influencers like Martha. —

Jeffrey Edell, Rolling Stone, 30 Jan. 2025 When the book was initially released in 2003, the American zeitgeist, shaped by 9/11 and the Bush administration’s global War on Terror, was rife with debates about the representations of Muslim women and life in the Middle East. —

Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 26 Jan. 2025 What makes this comedy a permanent fixture in the zeitgeist is its kaleidoscopic look at the end of high school, never just focusing on any one clique, but, instead, daring to try and capture them all. —

Brian Smolensky and James Mercadante, EW.com, 27 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for zeitgeist