Yankee

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           From meanness first this Portsmouth Yankey rose,
           And still to meanness all his conduct flows.
                                                    --Oppression,
                                                    A poem by an
                                                    American
                                                    (Boston,
                                                    1765).
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Yankee \Yan"kee\, a.
     Of or pertaining to a Yankee; characteristic of the Yankees.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           The alertness of the Yankee aspect.      --Hawthorne.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     {Yankee clover}. (Bot.) See {Japan clover}, under {Japan}.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Yankee
       adj : used by southerners for an inhabitant of a northern state in
             the United States (especially a Union soldier)
       n 1: an American who lives in the North (especially during the
            American Civil War) [syn: {Yank}, {Northerner}]
       2: an American who lives in New England [syn: {New Englander},
          {Yank}]
       3: an American [syn: {Yank}, {Yankee-Doodle}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  84 Moby Thesaurus words for "Yankee":
     Acadian, Anglo-Indian, Bolshevik, Bolshevist, Bolshie, Brooklynese,
     Cajun, Canadian French, Carbonarist, Carbonaro, Castroist,
     Castroite, Charley, Cockney, Communist, Cong, Down-Easter Yankee,
     Easterner, Fenian, French Canadian, Guevarist, Gullah, Jacobin,
     Leninist, Maoist, Marxist, Mau-Mau, Midland, Midland dialect,
     New England dialect, New Englander, Northener, Northman,
     Pennsylvania Dutch, Puritan, Red, Red Republican, Roundhead,
     Sinn Feiner, Trotskyist, Trotskyite, VC, Vietcong, Westerner,
     Yankee Doodle, Yorkshire, anarch, anarchist, bonnet rouge,
     bundle of isoglosses, class dialect, criminal syndicalist, dialect,
     dialect atlas, dialect dictionary, eastlander, idiom, isogloss,
     linguistic atlas, linguistic community, linguistic island,
     local dialect, localism, northlander, patois, provincialism, rebel,
     red, regional accent, regionalism, revolutionary,
     revolutionary junta, revolutioner, revolutionist, revolutionizer,
     sans-culotte, sans-culottist, southlander, speech community,
     subdialect, subversive, syndicalist, terrorist, westlander
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  YANKEE, n.  In Europe, an American.  In the Northern States of our
  Union, a New Englander.  In the Southern States the word is unknown. 
  (See DAMNYANK.)