Yankee definition | Dictionary.com

Yan⋅kee

[yang-kee]

–noun

1.	a native or inhabitant of the United States.

2.	a native or inhabitant of New England.

3.	a native or inhabitant of a northern U.S. state, esp. of one of the northeastern states that sided with the Union in the American Civil War.

4.	a federal or northern soldier in the American Civil War.

5.	a word used in communications to represent the letter Y.

6.	Military. the NATO name for a class of Soviet ballistic missile submarine, nuclear powered, with up to 16 missile launchers.

–adjective

7.	of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a Yankee or Yankees: Yankee ingenuity.

Origin:
1750–60, Americanism; perh. back formation from D Jan Kees John Cheese, nickname (mistaken for plural) applied by the Dutch of colonial New York to English settlers in Connecticut

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Yan·kee (yāng'kē)

A native or inhabitant of New England.
A native or inhabitant of a northern U.S. state, especially a Union soldier during the Civil War.
A native or inhabitant of the United States.

[Probably from Dutch Janke, nickname of Jan, John.]

Word History: The origin of Yankee has been the subject of much debate, but the most likely source is the Dutch name Janke, meaning "little Jan" or "little John," a nickname that dates back to the 1680s. Perhaps because it was used as the name of pirates, the name Yankee came to be used as a term of contempt. It was used this way in the 1750s by General James Wolfe, the British general who secured British domination of North America by defeating the French at Quebec. The name may have been applied to New Englanders as an extension of an original use referring to Dutch settlers living along the Hudson River. Whatever the reason, Yankee is first recorded in 1765 as a name for an inhabitant of New England. The first recorded use of the term by the British to refer to Americans in general appears in the 1780s, in a letter by Lord Horatio Nelson, no less. Around the same time it began to be abbreviated to Yank. During the American Revolution, American soldiers adopted this term of derision as a term of national pride. The derisive use nonetheless remained alive and even intensified in the South during the Civil War, when it referred not to all Americans but to those loyal to the Union. Now the term carries less emotion—except of course for baseball fans.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Yankee

Yan"kee\, n. [Commonly considered to be a corrupt pronunciation of the word English, or of the French word Anglais, by the native Indians of America. According to Thierry, a corruption of Jankin, a diminutive of John, and a nickname given to the English colonists of Connecticut by the Dutch settlers of New York. Dr. W. Gordon ("Hist. of the Amer. War," ed, 1789, vol. i., pp. 324, 325) says it was a favorite cant word in Cambridge, Mass., as early as 1713, and that it meant excellent; as, a yankee good horse, yankee good cider, etc. Cf. Scot yankie a sharp, clever, and rather bold woman, and Prov. E. bow-yankees a kind of leggins worn by agricultural laborers.] A nickname for a native or citizen of New England, especially one descended from old New England stock; by extension, an inhabitant of the Northern States as distinguished from a Southerner; also, applied sometimes by foreigners to any inhabitant of the United States.

From meanness first this Portsmouth Yankey rose, And still to meanness all his conduct flows. --Oppression, A poem by an American (Boston, 1765).

Yankee

Yan"kee\, a. Of or pertaining to a Yankee; characteristic of the Yankees.

The alertness of the Yankee aspect. --Hawthorne.

Yankee clover. (Bot.) See Japan clover, under Japan.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : Yankee

Spanish: yanqui,

German: der Yankee,

Japanese: ヤンキー

More Translations »

Yankee

Originally a nickname for people from New England, now applied to anyone from the United States. Even before the American Revolutionary War, the term Yankee was used by the British to refer, derisively, to the American colonists. Since the Civil War, American southerners have called all northerners Yankees. Since World War I, the rest of the world has used the term to refer to all Americans.

Note: The expression “Yankee, go home” reflects foreign resentment of American presence or involvement in other nations' affairs.

Yankee

1683, a name applied disparagingly by Du. settlers in New Amsterdam (New York) to English colonists in neighboring Connecticut. It may be from Du. Janke, lit. "Little John," dim. of common personal name Jan; or it may be from Jan Kes familiar form of "John Cornelius," or perhaps an alt. of Jan Kees, dial. variant of Jan Kaas, lit. "John Cheese," the generic nickname the Flemings used for Dutchmen. It originally seems to have been applied insultingly to Dutch, especially freebooters, before they turned around and slapped it on the English. In Eng. a term of contempt (1750s) before its use as a general term for "native of New England" (1765); during the American Revolution it became a disparaging British word for all American native or inhabitants. Shortened form Yank in reference to "an American" first recorded 1778.

Yankee

a native or citizen of the United States or, more narrowly, of the New England states of the United States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut). The term Yankee is often associated with such characteristics as shrewdness, thrift, ingenuity, and conservatism. It was applied to Federal soldiers and other Northerners by Southerners during the American Civil War (1861-65) and afterward.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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