虽然波希米亚人是指捷克波希米亚省的当地人，波希米亚人的第二个涵义却是出现在19世纪的法国。波希米亚人这个词被用来指称那些希望过著非传统生活风格的一群艺术家、作家与任何对传统不抱持幻想的人。这个词反映了15世纪以来法国人对来自于波希米亚的吉普赛人的观感。在法国人的想像中，“波希米亚人”会让他们联想到四处漂泊的吉普赛人，他们是自外于传统社会的一群人，不受传统的束缚，或许还会带来一些神秘的启示，可能对他们也有一些太不注重个人卫生的指责意味在。

亨利·穆杰（Henri Murger）出版于1845年的短篇故事集《波希米亚人的生活情景》（Scènes de la Vie de Bohème）让波希米亚人这个词普及于法国。穆杰小说中的概念为普契尼的歌剧《波希米亚人》（La Bohème，1896年）提供了主题。波希米亚在英语中的首次普及则是在威廉·萨克莱1848年出版的小说《浮华世界》（Vanity Fair）中。甚至一个场景设在塞维利亚的法语歌剧中的西班牙吉普赛人卡门（Carmen），在梅哈克与哈乐维歌剧本（Meilhac and Halévy's libretto，1875年）中就被称为波希米亚人。

这个名词和不同的艺术或学术社群产生关联，并且被用来当作以下这些人物、环境或情况的普遍形容词：在《美国大学辞典》中将 bohemian 定义为“一个具有艺术或思维倾向的人，他们生活和行动都不受传统行为准则的影响”。

保守的美国人经常将波希米亚人和毒品以及自陷贫困连结在一起，然而，过去一个半世纪以来许多最有才华的欧洲与美国文学名家都拥有波希米亚气质，因此如果列出一张波希米亚人名单的话会变得非常冗长。甚至像巴尔札克这样的布尔乔亚作家都会赞同波希米亚主义，尽管大部分的布尔乔亚并非如此。事实上，波希米亚和布尔乔亚常常被视为是相反的团体。在大卫·布鲁克斯（David Brooks）的《天堂里的布波族》（Bobos in Paradise）一书中描述了这两个团体彼此碰撞的历史，以及现代波希米亚和布尔乔亚融合在一起之后产称的一个新兴上层知识阶级－－“布尔乔亚波希米亚人”，简称为“布波族”。

波希米亚的意思是任何你可以便宜地生活与工作，而且行事不落传统的地方，一个能达到心灵自由的社区。19世纪与20世纪初在许多城市中都有兴起过波希米亚社区：德国慕尼黑的施瓦宾区（Schwabing）、法国巴黎的蒙马特区（Montmartre）和蒙巴纳区（Montparnasse）、美国纽约市的格林威治村、旧金山的北滩区（North Beach）以及之后的海特-艾许伯里区（Haight-Ashbury）、英国伦敦的切尔西区（Chelsea）、费兹罗维亚区（Fitzrovia）和苏活区。现代的波希米亚社区包括有中国的大理、泰国的清莱、尼泊尔的加德满都、荷兰的阿姆斯特丹。

Bohemianism

Though a Bohemian is a native of the Czech province of Bohemia, a secondary meaning for bohemian emerged in 19th century France. The term was used to describe artists, writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live non-traditional lifestyles.

"The term 'bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." (Westminster Review, 1862, noted at Online Etymology Dictionary.)

The term reflects the French perception, held since the 15th century, that the gypsies had come from Bohemia. Literary bohemians were associated in the French imagination with roving gypsies, outsiders apart from conventional society and untroubled by its disapproval. The term carries a connotation of arcane enlightenment (the opposite of 'Philistines'), and also carries a less frequently intended, pejorative connotation of carelessness. Bohemians were often associated with drugs and self-induced poverty.

Henri Murger's collection of short stories, Scènes de la Vie de Bohème (Scenes of Bohemian Life), published in 1845, popularized the term's usage in France. Ideas from Murger's collection formed the theme of Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème (1896).

In English, bohemian in this sense was first popularized in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, published in 1848. Even the Spanish gypsy in a French opera Carmen set in Seville is referred to as a bohémienne in Meilhac and Halévy's libretto (1875).

The term has become associated with various artistic or academic communities and is used as a generalized adjective describing such people, environs, or situations: bohemian' (boho - informal) is defined in The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."

Many prominent European and American literary figures of the last 150 years belonged to the bohemian counterculture, and any comprehensive 'list of bohemians' would be tediously long. Bohemianism has been approved of by some bourgeoisie writers such as Honoré de Balzac, but most conservative cultural critics do not condone the bohemian lifestyle. Ironically enough, bohemianism by definition can only exist within a framework of conservative values.

Bohemia meant any place where you could live and work cheaply, and behave unconventionally; a community of free souls far beyond the pale of respectable society. Several cities and neighbourhoods came to be associated with bohemianism in the 19th and 20th centuries: Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris; Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side in New York City; North Beach, Haight-Ashbury, and the Mission District in San Francisco; the French Quarter in New Orleans; Chelsea, Bedford Park, Fitzrovia and Soho in London; Schwabing in Munich; Ipanema and Leblon in Rio de Janeiro.

Modern bohemias include Barranco in Lima, Peru; Dali in China; Chiang Rai in Thailand; Kathmandu in Nepal; Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Prague in the Czech Republic; Užupis in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Vama Veche in Romania. In Australia, there is North Adelaide (in Adelaide, South Australia), Newtown in Sydney and Fitzroy in Melbourne, and Kensington Market in Toronto and Mile End in Montreal.

In popular culture

• Jonathan Larson's Broadway musical and film Rent, based on Puccini's La bohème, depicts the Bohemian culture of New York City in the 1990s. One of the feature numbers, La Vie Boheme, addresses the death of bohemia as an end of the neighborhood as a haven for these bohemians, while celebrating the ideals and history that formed this counterculture.
• The movie Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrmann bears relation to the opera La bohème and includes many references to the Bohemian subculture.
• Queen's song, "Bohemian Rhapsody."
• The fashion for so-called "Bohemian" or "boho" chic in the early 21st century included a number of elements from earlier eras.