The general moral, intellectual, and cultural climate of an era; Zeitgeist is German for “time-spirit.” For example, the Zeitgeist of England in the Victorian period included a belief in industrial progress, and the Zeitgeist of the 1980s in the United States was a belief in the power of money and the many ways in which to spend it.
Zeitgeist Zeit·geist (tsīt'gīst', zīt'-)
n.
The taste, outlook, and spirit characteristic of a period or generation.