Online Etymology Dictionary

Fosbury flop: high-jumping technique, 1968, in ref. to U.S. athlete Dick Fosbury (b.1947), who used it to win the 1968 Olympic gold medal.
zonk: 1950, "to hit hard;" 1968, "to put into a stupor;" slang term, of echoic origin.
bananas: "crazy," 1968; earlier (1935) it was noted as an underworld slang term for "sexually perverted."
bleep: "electronic noise," 1953, imitative. Meaning "edit a sound over a word deemed unfit for broadcast" is from 1968.
red-eye: "airplane flight which deprives travelers of sleep," 1968, from the red eyes of sleeplessness; earlier as a noun meaning "raw and inferior whiskey" (1819, Amer.Eng.).
LED: 1968, acronym from light-emitting diode.
LCD: 1973, acronym from liquid crystal display, which is attested from 1968.
clunky: "blocky, ungraceful," by 1968 (when it was the name of a style of women's shoe), from clunk.
dweeb: 1968, U.S. college student slang, probably a variant of feeb "feeble person."
ATM: 1976, acronym for automated teller machine (1974), which was first developed in modern form c.1968.
collateral damage: by 1873 in legal cases; in modern use, generally a euphemism for "the coincidental killing of civilians," U.S. coinage, c.1968, at first generally with ref. to nuclear weapons.
commodification: 1968, from commodity. Originally in Marxist political theory, "the assignment of a market value," typically to something the user feels ought not to have one.
high-five: originally U.S. basketball slang, 1980 as a noun, 1981 as a verb, though the greeting itself seems to be older (e.g. Dick Shawn in "The Producers," 1968).
kir: "white wine and crème de cassis," 1966 (popular in U.S. 1980s), from Canon Felix Kir (1876-1968), mayor of Dijon, who is said to have invented the recipe.
tanzanite: "violet-blue gemstone," 1968, named by Henry B. Platt, vice president of Tiffany & Co., because the stone was discovered in the African nation of Tanzania.
autistic (adj.): 1912 (Bleuler), from autism (q.v.). Noun meaning "person with autism" is recorded from 1968.
cutesy: "artificially or annoyingly cute," by 1968, from cute.
aerobics: method of exercise and a fad in early 1980s, Amer.Eng., coined 1968 by Kenneth H. Cooper, U.S. physician, from aerobic (q.v.) on the notion of activities which require modest oxygen intake and thus can be maintained.
Peter Principle: 1968, "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence," named for (and by) Laurence Johnston Peter (1919-1990) Canadian-born U.S. educationalist and author, who described it in his book of the same name (1969).
sexist: 1965, on model of racist, coined by Pauline M. Leet, director of special programs at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S., in a speech which was circulated in mimeograph among feminists. Popularized by use in print in Caroline Bird's introduction to "Born Female" (1968).
scuzzy: 1968, N.Amer. colloquial, perhaps a blend of scummy and fuzzy. First attested use is in ref. to Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy."
SALT: Cold War U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear weapons negotiations, 1968, acronym for "Strategic Arms Limitation Talks." The last element sometimes also is understood as treaty.
black hole: in astrophysics is from 1968, probably with awareness of Black Hole of Calcutta, incident of 1756 in which 146 Europeans were locked up overnight in punishment cell of barracks at Ft. William, Calcutta, and all but 23 perished.
survivor: 1504, in the legal sense of "one who outlives another," from survive. Meaning "one who has a knack for pulling through adversity" is attested from 1971. Survivor syndrome is first recorded 1968.
Oreo: derogatory word for "black person felt to have a 'white' mentality," 1968, black Amer.Eng., from the snack cookies, which consist of dark chocolate wafers and white sugar cream filling (hence "brown outside, white inside"). The cookies (made by Nabisco) date from 1912; the source of the name has been forgotten.
pulsar: 1968, from pulse, the form on analogy of quasar. When discovered in 1967, they were thought perhaps to be signals from alien civilizations and astronomers informally dubbed them LGM for "Little Green Men."
nod (v.): "to quickly bow the head," late 14c., of unknown origin, probably an O.E. word, but not recorded; perhaps related to O.H.G. hnoton "to shake," from P.Gmc. *khnudojanan. The noun is first attested 1540. Meaning "to drift in and out of consciousness while on drugs" is attested from 1968.
unisex: "sexually indistinguishable or neutral," 1968, from uni- + sex.
Scorpio: zodiacal constellation, 1391, from L. scorpio "scorpion" (see scorpion). The meaning "person born under or ruled by the sign of Scorpio" is recorded from 1968.
Band-Aid: trademark registered 1924 by Johnson & Johnson for a stick-on gauze pad or strip. The British equivalent was Elastoplast. Fig. sense of "temporary or makeshift solution to a problem, pallative" (often lower case, sometimes bandaid) is first recorded 1968; as an adj., from 1970.
Mace (3): chemical spray originally used in riot control, 1966, technically Chemical Mace, a proprietary name (General Ordnance Equipment Corp, Pittsburgh, Pa.), probably so called for its use as a weapon, in ref. to mace (1). The verb is first attested 1968.
pratfall: 1939, from prat "buttocks" (1567), originally criminals' slang, of unknown origin. Prat in British slang sense of "dolt, fool" is recorded from 1968.
workaholic: 1968, coined from work (n.) with second element abstracted absurdly from alcoholic, setting up the Rodney Dangerfield joke, "My old man was a workaholic: every time he thought about work, he got drunk."
toke (n.): 1968, "inhalation of a marijuana cigarette or pipe smoke," U.S. slang, from earlier verb meaning "to smoke a marijuana cigarette" (1952), perhaps from Sp. tocar in sense of "touch, tap, hit" or "get a shave or part." In 19c. the same word in British slang meant "small piece of poor-quality bread," but this probably is not related.
decriminalization: 1945, from de- + criminal + ization. Especially in reference to narcotics since c.1968.
desertification: 1973, from desert (n.1) + -fication. In Fr., désertisation is attested from 1968.
hijack: 1923, Amer.Eng., from high(way) + jacker "one who holds up." Originally "to rob (a bootlegger, smuggler, etc.) in transit;" sense of "seizing an aircraft in flight" is 1968 (also in 1961 variant skyjack), extended 1970s to any form of public transportation.
smartmouth (n.): 1968, from smart (adj.) + mouth.
Hare Krishna: 1968, from title of a Hindu chant or mantra, from Hindi hare "O God!" + Krishna, name of an incarnation of the god Vishnu.
potty (n.): 1942, child's word for "chamber pot," from pot (1). Potty-training is attested from 1958. Potty-mouth "one who uses obscene language" is student slang from 1968.
inner: c.1400, from O.E. inra, comp. of inne (adv.) "inside" (see in). Inner city, in ref. to poverty and crime, is attested from 1968.
Jones: for the surname, see John. Phrase keep up with the Joneses (1913, Amer.Eng.) is from the title of a comic strip by Arthur R. Momand. The slang sense "intense desire, addiction" (1968) probably arose from earlier use of Jones as a synonym for "heroin," presumably from the proper name, but the connection, if any, is obscure.
retro: 1974, from Fr. rétro (1973), short for rétrograde, supposedly first used of a revival c.1968 of Eva Peron-inspired fashions (see retrograde). There is an isolated use in Eng. from 1768.
Epstein-Barr virus: 1968, named for British virologist Michael Anthony Epstein and Irish-born virologist Yvonne M. Barr.
reggae: 1968, Jamaican Eng. (first in song title "Do the Reggay" by Toots & the Maytals), perhaps related to rege-rege "a quarrel, protest," lit. "ragged clothes," variant of raga-raga, alteration and reduplication of Eng. rag.
kilo: 1870, shortening of kilogram. The prefix meaning "one thousand" was introduced in Fr. 1795, when the metric system was officially adopted there, from Gk. khilioi "thousand," of unknown origin. Slang shortening key (in drug trafficking) is attested from 1968.
Yippie: 1968, acronym from fictitious "Youth International Party," modeled on hippie.
"On December 31, 1967, Abbie [Hoffman], Jerry [Rubin], Paul Krassner, Dick Gregory, and friends decided to pronounce themselves the Yippies. (The name came first, then the acronym that would satisfy literal-minded reporters: Youth International Party.)" [Todd Gitlin," The Sixties," 1987, p.235]
space (v.): 1703, "to arrange at set intervals," from space (n.). Meaning "to be in a state of drug-induced euphoria" is recorded from 1968. Space cadet "eccentric person disconnected with reality" (often implying an intimacy with hallucinogenic drugs) is a 1960s phrase, probably traceable to 1950s U.S. sci-fi television program "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet," which was watched by many children who dreamed of growing up to be one and succeeded.
blindside: also blind-side, blind side; the last, with the meaning "unguarded aspect," is from 1606; the verb meaning "to hit from the blind side" (written as one word) first attested 1968, Amer.Eng., in ref. to U.S. football.
thrust (v.): c.1175, from O.N. þrysta "to thrust, force," from P.Gmc. *thrustijanan, perhaps from PIE *trud- "push, press" (see threat), but OED finds this derivation doubtful. The noun is recorded from 1513; fig. sense of "principal theme, aim, point, purpose" is recorded from 1968.