Yankee. World English Historical Dictionary

Yankee. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Bibliographic Record Thornton’s An American Glossary. 1912, rev. 2022. Yankee Properly a New-Englander; but see quotation 1827. The origin of the word cannot be ascertained with certainty. Smollett (infra) writes of “a Dutch yanky,” probably a sailing vessel, possibly a Dutch sailor; but this cannot be connected with the odd word in question. The real Yankees have long been noted for their inquisitiveness. See quot. [1775].

1 1760.  Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky.—Smollett, ‘Sir Launcelot Greaves,’ p. 45 (1762): British Magazine, i. 125.

2 1774.  [John Malcom had said at Boston] that he would split down the yankies by dozens.—Newport Mercury, Feb. 7.

3 [1775.  [General Washington is] far from haughty and supercilious, though naturally reserved; which is a quality that may secure him from answering, without offending, many improper questions, that the New Englanders will be likely to ask, for they are amazingly addicted to inquisitiveness: this is greatly owing to the equality that prevails among them, and leads them into those mutual freedoms, which are censured in places where distinction in fortune and rank are far more prevalent and disproportioned.”—William Gordon, ‘Hist. of the Am. Revolution,’ ii. 35: Lond., 1788.]

4 1775.  William Gordon attributes the origin of the word to Jonathan Hastings of Cambridge, Mass., about 1713.—Id., i. 481–2.

5 1777.  The Continental bean-shells, mann’d with Yankies, and armed with innocent pop-guns.—Maryland Journal, Feb. 25.

6 1794.  [The dandies of the period] make great use of the word “yankee,” and are fond of passing themselves for Englishmen.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 12.

7 1799.          Faith, ’twill be Yankee like, and plagued funny,   But, Peter dear, how will it come to pass? The Aurora, Sept. 30 (Phila.).    

8 1800.  The Yankees would be pleased with John Adams, and the Pennsylvanians, Virginians, &c., would be content with Thomas Jefferson.—Id., April 14.

9 1800.  I am a plain Yankee, for a long time sailed out of Marblehead…. There are 14 or 20 more of us Yankees aboard, and all as good hearts as ever strapped a block.—Letter from “Nathan Cornstock” to Benjamin Stoddard, Esq., “Secretary of the Admiraltree”: id., May 2.

10 1801.  Covered by the darkness of night, and guided by a cunning Yankee pilot, the Berceau has made her escape from Boston harbour.—The Port Folio, i. 326 (Phila.).

11 1802.  The show is over, as we yankees say; and the girl is my own. That is if I will have her.—H. W. Foster, ‘The Coquette,’ p. 137 (Charlestown, Mass.).

12 1802.  It was with great difficulty that a gentleman escaped the yankee punishment of tar and feathers, and that his house was rescued from destruction, by his consent to wear a crape, and to ask pardon standing publickly on a table!—J. T. Callender, ‘Letters to Alexander Hamilton, King of the Feds,’ pp. 43– (N.Y.).

13 1802.  Tea, sugar, and coffee are as necessary to a Yankee as whiskey is to a Virginian.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 4: from the Newport (R.I.) Mercury.

14 1802.  See SPORTSMAN.

15 1805.  This time-serving creature may rest assured that his yankee cunning and snivelling hypocrisy will be duly regarded.—Lancaster (Pa.) Journal, Aug. 9.

16 1808.  Another declared that there was no person fit to deal with a thorough bred Yankee but a Wilmington Quaker.—The Balance, Jan. 19, p. 12.

17 1809.          No more shall Nelson boast his scalding flood,     Or with his loud stentorian roar     Drive half the Congress out of door, Or from the Yankees drain the precious blood. Mass. Spy, July 12.    

18 1812.  The Americans did not disgrace themselves nor their (yankee) country.—Id., Sept. 16.

19 1813.  [Mr. Madison] can make the cool and calculating yankees give up their trade, and even their last coat, without danger of losing his popularity.—Boston-Gazette, March 22.

20 1813.  The proverbial shrewdness of that portion of our countrymen vulgarly denominated Yankees, is set off, even in the lowest classes, with a polished language and address, totally different from the blunt manners and uncouth jargon of the natives of Yorkshire, in England, who resemble them in many striking characteristics.—Analectic Mag., ii. 306 (Phila.).

21 1819.  In America, the term Yankee is applied to the natives of New-England only, and is generally used with an air of pleasantry. Note to a Letter from Philadelphia, Oct., 1819.—Mass. Spy, Jan. 15, 1823.

22 1819.  In the southwestern part of the United States, where no great eclipse appeared, some of the old inhabitants declare, that this change of seasons arrived with the Yankees, from the north.—David Thomas, ‘Travels,’ p. 58 (Auburn, N.Y.).

23 1820.  We inland Yankees never saw such an inconceivable animal in our lives, and are bold to affirm that such a one does not and cannot exist.—Letter on the “Long Island Hoax”: Mass. Spy, Feb. 9.

24 1820.  The British of the lower class (says the editor of John Trumbull’s ‘Poems’) have extended the use of the word to all the people of the U.S.

25 1822.  A few years since, most of the choirs in New-England were running mad after what was termed Yankee musick.—Mass. Spy, May 1: from the Connecticut Mirror.

26 1823.  The traveller’s taste forms his test to discover whether he is entitled to the opprobrious name of Yankee, as the people of the northern and eastern states rarely choose sour milk.—E. James, ‘Rocky Mountain Expedition,’ i. 83 (Phila.).

27 1823.  They [the people of Pittsburgh] are extremely jealous of the yankees, and from the character of some of them, ungenerously and uncharitably, condemn the whole. This is more or less the case throughout the western and southern states.—Geo. W. Ogden, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 11 (New Bedford).

28 1823.  The people of the place, however, prejudiced against him, as a Yankee, deputed four persons to inform him, that unless he quitted the town and state immediately, he should receive Lynch’s law, that is, a whipping in the woods…. In walking through Kentucky, he found the people very inhospitable towards him, because he was a walking, working Yankee man, on a journey, and, therefore, considered as nothing better than, or below, a nigger.—W. Faux, ‘Memorable Days in America,’ pp. 304–5 (Lond.).

29 1824.          Yankees read anecdotes, and “Hobson’s choice” Is mouthed by every one who has a voice; Yankees act too like Laban and like Hobson; Witness this anecdote of old Squire Dobson. Mass. Spy, Feb. 4: from the Hancock Gazette.    

30 1825.  The New Englanders, or Yankees, were hated by the southern troops. The former were all—every one, perhaps—native born Americans; hard working, thoughtful men; small proprietors; grave, substantial farmers, who had come to battle, under a sort of religious feeling; each with an axe, a rifle, and a good—book.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ iii. 46.

31 1827.  WHO IS A YANKEE? Let a man north of New York visit that city, and they call him Yankee, to distinguish him from a New Yorker. Let a man from New York visit Philadelphia, and he will be called a Yankee, to distinguish him from a Philadelphian. Let a man from Philadelphia go no further south than Baltimore, and he will be nicknamed Yankee, to distinguish him from a Baltimorean. Let a man from the north of the Potomac visit Virginia, and he is immediately dubbed with the title of Yankee, to distinguish him from a pure Virginian. Let a man from Virginia visit Charleston, and he is supposed to have strong claims to the appellation of Yankee. Let a man from Charleston visit New Orleans, and there are ten chances to one he will get the nickname of Yankee. Let a man from any part of Jonathan’s dominions visit the kingdom of John Bull, and he will forthwith receive the appellation of Yankee.—Mass. Spy, June 6.

32 *** This extract is specially valuable as showing the varying use of the word within the borders of the U.S. It reminds one of Pope’s lines:—        Ask where’s the North? At York ’tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. ‘Essay on Man,’ ii. 222–4.

33 1827.  We have long viewed with pain the manifestations of distrust and contemptuous aversion to every thing Yankee which frequently occur in Virginia.—Mass. Spy, Oct. 3: from the Fredericksburg (Va.) Arena.

34 1830.  Toast by Col. Brown of S. Carolina: “Yankee boasters—may they be charged with cow-foot gun-flints, wadded with insurrection pamphlets, primed with wooden nutmegs, and levelled against the eastern manufactories.”—Mass. Spy, July 28.

35 1832.  The Indians called the Quakers Quekels; and “the English,” by inability of pronouncing it, they sounded Yengees—from whence probably we have now our name of Yankees.—Watson, ‘Historic Tales of New York,’ p. 56.

36 1833.  The Yankees, as all men north of the Potomac are here termed, are generally well educated, and have become as celebrated in the west for shrewdness and cunning, as they are in the south.—‘Sketches of D. Crockett,’ p. 205 (N.Y.).

37 1833.  See ’CUTE.

38 1834.  “Is he a Yankee or a white man?” [Quoted as a common question in Virginia.]—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ ii. 241 (1835).

39 1835.  We often wonder how things are made so cheap among the yankees.—‘Col. Crockett’s Tour,’ p. 62 (Phila.).

40 1835.  With us in the south, yankee cunning is assuming the true name, yankee knowledge of business, and perseverance in whatever they undertake.—Id., p. 65.

41 1836.  The easternmost Yankees have hit on a new trick.—Phila. Public Ledger, April 7.

42 1838.  The people of that State [Kentucky], cherished strong prejudices against Yankees, whom they considered as a race of pedlars, perambulating every quarter of the globe, and cheating honest folk, with wooden clocks and horn-flints.—B. Drake, ‘Tales and Sketches,’ p. 80 (Cincinn.).

43 1839.  The people [in Illinois] are more ignorant, more vicious, and more indolent than Yankees.—Letter to the Farmer’s Monthly Visitor, Concord, N.H., Dec. 20.

44 1841.  Mr. Marshall of Kentucky had never been able to look upon the people of the North as the natural enemies of the people of the South. He knew that Southern men called them “Yankees”; but they were Americans, our brethren and fellow-citizens.—House of Repr., Dec. 22: Cong. Globe, p. 50.

45 1842.  “A Yankee is a very Devil.” Heading of an item in which it is stated that a New-Englander taught the Affghans to resist the British power in India.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, April 25.

46 1845.  I took three yankees on board [in 1814] to work their passage as far as Cincinnati.—‘The Cincinnati Miscellany,’ i. 127.

47 1845.  We have a mortal antipathy [in Illinois] to greenhorns, Mormons, Yankees, and men without money.—Letter to the Bangor (Me.) Mercury, n.d.

48 1846.  “Yankee Tricks.” This is a common term for anything very smart, done in the way of trade, no matter in which of the States the doer was born…. I am no Yankee, but have been acquainted with many of them in the way of business and friendly intercourse…. Let any Yankee take a journey south on a real good horse, and when he returns see if the beast he rides does not shew he has been out yankeed.—‘The Cincinnati Miscellany,’ ii. 308.

49 1846.  The husband had come from Virginia, long years ago, and had moved from place to place at different times to escape the Yankees.—Knick. Mag., xxviii. 310 (Oct.).

50 1848.  Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee had heard those who did not like some Yankees damn them all as a class. He never thought they did exactly right to damn every Yankee, because they disliked some whom they had met. There were some very clever gentlemen among them.—House of Repr., Dec. 11: Cong. Globe, p. 24.

51 1849.  The Northern Germans have the reputation of being rather heavy, but they are the Yankees of the continent in bargaining.—Mr. John A. Dix of N.Y., U.S. Senate, Jan. 23: id., p. 328.

52 1852.  He thinks there should be a wall built around the state [of Virginia] to keep off the rascally Yankees.—Knick. Mag., xl. 322 (Oct.).

53 1855.  See HELP.

54 1856.  To the Englishman, every body who hails from the u-niversal American nation is a Yankee. In his native ignorance he believes that Bostonians carry bowie-knives, that there are large manufactories of wooden-nutmegs in Philadelphia, that the North-River people excel in gouging out eyes, and that the South-Carolina folks are great as tin-peddlers.—Knick. Mag., xlvii. 266 (March). [The same article describes the quiet Yankees and the fast Yankees.]

55 1857.  A most merited rebuke to the destructive character of the Yankee was given by an English lady.—San Francisco Call, Feb. 26.

56 1857.  They [the Spanish residents of California] find themselves every year growing poorer, by reason of the ‘business talents’ of ‘Los Yankees.’—Knick Mag., l. 257 (Sept.).

57 1861.  If the whole Yankee race should fall down in the dust tomorrow, and pray us to be their masters, we should spurn them even as slaves.—Richmond Dispatch, Jan. 10: see Cong. Globe, Jan. 31, 1863, p. 660/2.

58 1863.  I would desire gentlemen to give us a little variation by setting some of their philippics to music, as some Yankee teacher set lessons in geography and other studies to music in the Western States.—Mr. Garrett Davis of Ky., U.S. Senate, Feb. 7: id., p. 798/3.

59 1863.  Jefferson Davis, the other day, told his deluded and guilty compeers that if the choice was submitted to them to make a union with hyenas or with the Yankees—and they call us all Yankees who are loyal to the country, and I am proud of the epithet,—they would choose the hyenas.—Mr. Henry Wilson of Mass., the same, Feb. 23: id., p. 1184/2.

60 1866.  The farmer’s wife [in Texas] was taking her first look at Yankees, but she found that we neither wore horns nor were cloven-footed.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 150 (1888).

61 1876.  Captain Bowden was a chip: a fair-haired, light-moustached, Saxon-faced “Yank”—far the worst type of man, let me tell you, yet discovered.—‘Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,’ i. 264 (Richmond, Va.).

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