GREATEST GENERATION

What Does Greatest Generation Mean?

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The Greatest Generation is the generation born during the first part of the twentieth century, generally accepted as between 1901 and 1927. It is also known as the G.I. Generation and the World War II generation. This is the cohort that grew up during the Great Depression then saved us all from tyranny and built the modern world. They also ushered in an industrial boom (which was great for progress, but not so great for the planet), and gave us the Baby Boomers (also not so great for the planet).

The Greatest Generation was preceded by the Lost Generation and followed by the Silent Generation.

Check out our page on generational cohorts.

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The Greatest Generation is also known as the WW2 Generation and the GI Generation.

Summary of Key Points

We have summarized the key points in the table below:

Greatest Generation
Definition:	Generation Born between 1901 and 1927
Type:	Word
Guessability:	4: Difficult to guess
Typical Users:	Adults and Teenagers

An Academic Look at Greatest Generation

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"Greatest Generation" is a noun phrase. A noun phrase consists of a noun and its modifiers. In this case, "generation" is the noun, and "greatest" is an adjective modifying the noun.