Zeitgeist

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈzaɪtˌɡaɪst/

Definitions

1. The defining spirit or mood of a particular period in history is often reflected in the ideas, beliefs, and cultural phenomena that are prevalent at that time
2. It refers to the intellectual and cultural climate or general trends that characterize an era, influencing art, philosophy, and society as a whole
3. This term encapsulates the collective consciousness and prevailing attitudes or feelings that define a specific time in history, shaping how individuals perceive their world

Etymology: German "Zeitgeist" joins "Zeit," meaning time or age, with "Geist," meaning spirit, mind or intellect. The compound is an unadapted borrowing, which means English took it over with its German spelling and capital-free pronunciation intact rather than reshaping it to fit English habits. The German word itself describes the prevailing outlook or mood of a particular era, the collective sense of what a period cares about and believes. The concept's power in German thought is the reason the term travelled. Writers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries used it to describe the intellectual atmosphere that seemed to shape each generation's art and ideas, and English speakers borrowed the German phrase to name that idea in a single word. English had no native compound that carried quite the same sense of a whole era having a spirit of its own. Because the word was borrowed rather than translated, it still looks and sounds foreign on the page. Its two halves stay recognisably German, so anyone who knows "Zeit" and "Geist" can read the meaning straight off the word.

Synonyms: spirit of the age, cultural climate, mood of the times, current, trend