One way to hold this word: a person standing a step ahead of the crowd. They already have the record, the coffee, the haircut that everyone else will have next year. Everything the word does grows out of that one step of distance — being ahead of it, being away from it, or having been ahead of it seventy years ago.
From the word’s history
Recorded as hip + -ster: hip in the slang sense of being aware of what is going on, plus -ster meaning a kind of person, as in youngster. First attested in 1920s America for someone carrying something on the hip, and in the 1940s as a variant of hepster for a follower of the latest styles.
資料記載這個字是 hip 加上 -ster。hip 是俚語的「跟得上、懂門道」，-ster 表示某一種人，像 youngster。它最早在一九二○年代的美國指「把東西掛在腰上的人」，一九四○年代成為 hepster 的另一種寫法，用來指追流行的人。這兩條線索，剛好對上今天「人」和「褲子」兩種用法。
Wiktionary entry supplied in this packet, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1064151789:24962
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