Yankee

Meanings

Noun

• A native or inhabitant of the United States.
• A native or inhabitant of the Northern United States.
• A native or inhabitant of New England.
• An Anglo, as opposed to someone with French ancestry; a native or inhabitant of the rest of the United States.
• 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.
• A player that plays for the New York Yankees.
• A wager on four selections, consisting of 11 separate bets: six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.

Verb

• to cheat, trick or swindle somebody; to misrepresent something

Origin

• First attested in 1683, as a name applied disparagingly by Dutch settlers in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York) to English colonists in neighboring Connecticut. It may be from Dutch Janke, the old diminutive form of the common personal name Jan, or it may be from Jan Kees, the familiar form of "Johan Cornelius", or a variant of Jan Kaas, literally "John Cheese", the generic nickname the Flemings used for Dutchmen. It originally seems to have been applied insultingly to the Dutch, especially freebooters, before they turned around and applied it to the English. In English it was a term of contempt (1750s) before it came to be used as a general term for "a native of New England" (1765). The shortened form Yank was first recorded in reference to "an American" in 1778. James Fenimore Cooper suggested that it was a corruption of "English" via the intermediate form "Yengeese."