Yankee

nounverbcommon in dialogue

//ˈjæŋ.ki//
//ˈjeɪ̯ŋ.ki//
//ˈjɛ̃ŋ.ki//

A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: A native or inhabitant of the northern United States.

noun

1
A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: A native or inhabitant of the northern United States.
[…]so that I couldn't help telling her, sir, that in our country, leastways in Virginia (they say the Yankees are very pert), young people don't speak of their elders so.
“So, he is the father of Emmie Slattery’s baby,” thought Scarlett. “Oh, well. What else can you expect from a Yankee man and a white-trash girl?”
2
A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: A native or inhabitant of the northern United States. A native or inhabitant of New England.
3
A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: An anglo, someone without French ancestry; a native or inhabitant of the rest of the United States.
4
A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: A native or inhabitant of the United States in general.
...in a short time, a kind of infectious mirth and pride in their bargains took possession of the place, and every one bought something, holding out their purchases to view, and praising them in the words and phraseology of the young yankees, who, finding their own importance, were not slow to avail themselves of it,...
5
historicalAny individual associated with the Union; that is, the United States federal government, during the American Civil War.
6
A player for the New York Yankees.
7
A large triangular headsail used in light or moderate winds and set on the fore topmast stay. Unlike a genoa it does not fill the whole fore triangle, but is set in combination with the working staysail.
8
A wager on four selections, consisting of 11 separate bets: six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold accumulator.
Betting is complicated with win bets, place bets, each-way bets and complex bets such as doubles, trebles, Yankees and the like.

Etymology

First attested in 1765, when it was described as "a name of derision … given by the Southern people on the Continent to those of New England". Various suggestions have been made as to its origin: that it derives from a Cherokee word meaning "slave" or "coward" and was applied to the New Englanders by the Virginians because the former refused to aid the latter in a war against the Cherokees; that it derives from Yengees, an Indian corruption of English; and that it derives from Janke, a pet form of the common Dutch forename Jan. The OED regards the last of these as "perhaps the most plausible".

verb

1
datedto cheat, trick or swindle somebody; to misrepresent something
Kentuckians reportedly regarded a Yankee “as a sort of Jesuit” because of his religious zeal, while in Illinois the term yankeed was synonymous with cheated.

Forms

plural: Yankees
past tense: Yankeed
past participle: Yankeed
present participle: Yankeeing
third person singular: Yankees

yank · A sudden, vigorous pull (sometimes defined as mass times…Yank · A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States.…yankee · A headsail resembling a genoa or a jib but with a high-cut…

Yankee · A native or inhabitant of some part of the United States: A native or inhabitant of the northern United States.

Yankees · The team New York Yankees.Yao · A Bantu people living in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania in…yapping · A sound that yaps, especially the continued barking of a…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.