Google Zeitgeist zeit?geist | Pronunciation: 'tsIt-"gIst, 'zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. People around the world search on Google, with a bit of analysis, this flurry of searches often exposes interesting trends, patterns, and surprises. This is really quite cool. You can see what people were thinking about at a given time. Granted google has a certain user type that gives bias, but it is still very neat.