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{{Short description|Term for people from the United States}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Redirect|Yank|other uses|Yank (disambiguation)}}
{{About||the baseball team|New York Yankees|other uses|Yankee (disambiguation)}}
The term '''''Yankee''''' and its contracted form '''''Yank''''' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the [[United States]]. Their various meanings depend on the context, and may refer to [[New Englanders]], the [[Northeastern United States]], the [[Northern United States]], or to people from the [[US]] in general. Many of the earlier immigrants to the northeast from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and other regions of Europe, used ''Yankees'' to refer to [[English settlers]] in [[New England]].<ref name="aristiderzolberg">{{cite book |title=A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America|author=Aristide R. Zolberg|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2006|pages=520}}</ref><ref name="barbarahandymarchello">{{cite book |title=Women of the Northern Plains: Gender and Settlement on the Homestead Frontier, 1870-1930|author=Barbara Handy-Marchello|publisher=Minnesota Historical Society|year=2005|pages=205}}</ref><ref name="americanethnicgroups">{{cite book |title=American Ethnic Groups, the European Heritage: A Bibliography of Doctoral Dissertations Completed at American Universities|author1=Francesco Cordasco|author2=David Nelson Alloway|publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=1981|pages=119}}</ref>

Outside the United States, ''Yank'' is used informally to refer to a person or thing from the US. It has been especially popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand where it may be used variously, either with an uncomplimentary overtone, endearingly, or cordially.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/yank_2#yank_2__3 |title=Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference|url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/7857184 |title=250, 100, 280 class railcars of the South Australian Railways |first=Kim |last=Bird |date=2012 |book-title=Proceedings of the 2012 Convention |page=3{{nbhyph}}390<!--A non-breaking hyphen is used here because the numerals do not represent a range of pages but one page numbered with four digits and a hyphen.--> |location=Adelaide |conference=Modelling the Railways of South Australia |quote=One of the drawing office staff relates how they spent months reading "Yankee magazines and extracting all the articles on Budd Rail Diesel Cars".}}</ref> In the [[Southern United States]], ''Yankee'' is a derisive term which refers to all Northerners, and during the [[American Civil War]] it was applied by [[Confederate States of America|Confederates]] to soldiers of the [[Union (Civil War)|Union]] army in general. Elsewhere in the United States, it largely refers to people from the Northeast or with [[New England]] cultural ties, such as descendants of [[colonial New England]] settlers, wherever they live.<ref name="ruth">{{cite journal|year=1963|title=Swamp Yankee|journal=American Speech|volume=38|issue=2|pages=121–123|doi=10.2307/453288|jstor=453288|author=Ruth Schell}}</ref> Its sense is sometimes more cultural than geographical, emphasizing the [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] [[Puritans|Puritan]] Christian beliefs and traditions of the Congregationalists who brought their culture when they settled outside New England. The speech dialect of [[Eastern New England English]] is called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXY0yQnvmmUC&pg=PA326|title=The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms|publisher=Infobase|year=2000|page=326|author=Robert Hendrickson|isbn=9781438129921}}</ref>

==Etymology and historical usage of the term==
The meaning of ''Yankee'' has varied over time. Its earliest usage was in the 17th century, in [[New Netherland]].<ref name="posh">{{Cite web |title=World Wide Words: Port Out, Starboard Home |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/re-por1.htm |website=World Wide Words}}</ref><ref name=yanky/> In the 18th century, it referred to residents of [[New England]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Yankee |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/yankee |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=education.nationalgeographic.org |language=en}}</ref> As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from the United States, and was often derogatory.<ref name=":1">{{Citation |title=Yankee, n. & adj. |date=2024-10-10 |work=Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://oed.com/dictionary/yankee_n |access-date=2025-09-13 |edition=3 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/oed/2886686612|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Mathews" />

In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> Historically, it has also been used to distinguish American-born Protestants from later immigrants, such as Catholics of Irish descent.<ref name="tager">{{cite book|first1=Jack|last1=Tager|title=Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence|url=https://archive.org/details/bostonriotsthree00tage|url-access=registration|publisher=Northeastern University Press|date=2001|isbn=1555534600|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bostonriotsthree00tage/page/107 107], 120-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Harkins |first1=Edward Francis |title=The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life |date=1903 |publisher=L.C. Page & Company |page=243 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EutEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA243}}</ref>
===New Netherland origin===
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The term ''Yankee'' is attested as early as 1683.<ref name="yanky" /> It likely derives from the Dutch name ''Janke'' (lit. 'Little John'), which was popular across New Netherland during the 17th century.<ref name=posh /><ref name=yanky /><ref name="de Vries 1971">{{cite book |last=de Vries |first=Jan |year=1971 |title=Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek |language=nl |at=Headword: yankee}}</ref> The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' calls this theory "perhaps the most plausible".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2025-08-29 |title=Yankee {{!}} Meaning, Slang, Origin, Definition, & American {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yankee-nickname |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

''Janke'' was used as both a diminutive form of the Dutch name ''Jan'' ({{IPA|nl|jɑn|lang}}) and as a surname in its own right.<ref name="posh" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Liberman |first=Anatoly |date=1996 |title=Etymology |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/153/article/458605 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=37–39 |doi=10.1353/dic.1996.0000 |issn=2160-5076|url-access=subscription}}</ref> After the British replaced the Dutch administration in 1664, it would have been Anglicized as ''Yankee''. [[Michael Quinion]] and [[Patrick Hanks]] posit that ''Yankee'' was therefore "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times".<ref name="posh" />

Alternatively, the ''[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]'' suggests that ''Yankee'' may be derived from ''Jan Kees'' or ''Jan Kaas'' (lit. 'John Cheese'), originally a derogatory [[Flemish people|Flemish]] nickname for the Dutch.<ref name="yanky" /><ref>Alinei, Mario. "Studies related to English: Yankee: A Dutch Etymology Revisited." In Heinrich Ramisch and Kenneth Wynne (eds.), ''[http://fis.uni-bamberg.de/bitstreams/5bdb5df0-3361-43c6-8958-d444da80cdef/download#page=49 Language in Time and Space: Studies in Honour of Wolfgang Viereck on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday]'' (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997; Bamberg, 2024), pp.  1–5.</ref> The Dutch settlers of [[New Amsterdam]] may have used this as a disparaging term for the English colonists in Connecticut.<ref name=yanky>Harper, Douglas. ''Online Etymology Dictionary'': "[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=yankee Yankee]". 2013. Accessed 13 Jul 2013.</ref>

===New England use===
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Dutch colonists in [[New Amsterdam]] may have been the first to call New Englanders—specifically English colonists in Connecticut—''Yankees''.<ref name="yanky" /><ref name="MW"/><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mizetska |first=V. Y. |last2=Zubov |first2=M. I. |date=2020-01-13 |title=Chapter 7: Types of ethnophobisms, their etymology  and usage |url=http://catalog.liha-pres.eu/index.php/liha-pres/catalog/view/75/903/1980-1 |journal=Liha-Pres |language=en |doi=10.36059/978-966-397-172-8/121-135}}</ref> In 1758, British General [[James Wolfe]] also negatively referred to New England soldiers under his command as ''Yankees''.<ref name="Mathews">Mathews (1951) p 1896</ref><ref name="Merriam Webster 2025">{{Cite web |title=Definition of YANKEE |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Yankee |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref>

The term was not used by New Englanders themselves until 1775.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="Merriam Webster 2025" /> According to ''Merriam-Webster'', New Englanders began to use the term as a self-descriptor after their successes in the battles of Lexington and Concord.<ref name="Merriam Webster 2025" />

===Rejected etymologies===
Many etymologies have been suggested for the word ''Yankee'', but modern linguists generally reject theories that suggest it originated in any Indigenous languages.<ref name="MW"/> This includes a theory put forth by a British officer in 1789, who said that it was derived from the [[Cherokee language|Cherokee]] word ''eankke'' meaning "coward"—despite the fact that no such word existed in the Cherokee language.<ref name="MW">''The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories'' (1991) pp. 516–517.</ref> Another theory surmised that the word was borrowed from the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]] pronunciation of the French ''l'anglais'', meaning "the Englishman" or "the English language", which was sounded as ''Y'an-gee''.<ref name="MW"/><ref>Mathews (1951) p.&nbsp;1896.</ref>

American musicologist [[Oscar Sonneck]] debunked a romanticized false etymology in his 1909 work ''Report on "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle"''. He cited a popular theory that the word came from a tribe called the ''Yankoos'' (said to mean "invincible") who were defeated by New Englanders, and transferred their name to the victors as part of an "Indian custom". Sonneck found no evidence such a tradition existed, nor had any settlers ever adopted an Indian name to describe themselves, and concluded there was never a tribe called the ''Yankoos''.<ref>{{cite book | last = Sonneck | first = O. G. | title = Report on "The star-spangled banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle | publisher = University Press of the Pacific | location = Honolulu, Hawaii | year = 2001 | page = 83 | isbn = 0898755328 }}</ref>

==History==

===Yankee settlement in the United States===
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The original Yankees diffused widely across the northern United States, leaving their imprints in New York, the [[Upper Midwest]], many taking advantage of water routes by the [[Great Lakes]], and places as far away as [[Seattle]], [[San Francisco]], and [[Honolulu]].<ref>Mathews (1909), Holbrook (1950)</ref>

<blockquote>Yankeeism is the general character of the Union. Yankee manners are as migratory as Yankee men. The latter are found everywhere and the former prevail wherever the latter are found. Although the genuine Yankee belongs to New England, the term "Yankee" is now as appropriate to the natives of the Union at large.<ref name="thomascolleygrattan">{{cite book |title=Civilized America ... Second edition, Volume 1|author=Thomas Colley Grattan|publisher=Bradbury&Evans|year=1859|pages=7}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Yankees settled other states in various ways: some joined highly organized colonization companies, others purchased groups of land together; some joined volunteer land settlement groups, and self-reliant individual families also migrated.<ref name="thomascolleygrattan" /> Yankees typically lived in villages consisting of clusters of separate farms.  Often they were merchants, bankers, teachers, or professionals.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth J. Winkle|title=The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcEVAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA78|year=2001|publisher=Taylor |page=78|isbn=9781461734369}}</ref><ref name="susanegray">{{cite book |title= The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier|author=Susan E. Gray|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|year=1996|pages=11}}</ref>

Village life fostered local democracy, best exemplified by the open [[town meeting]] form of government that still exists today in New England. Village life also stimulated mutual oversight of moral behavior and emphasized civic virtue. The Yankees built international trade routes stretching to China by 1800 from the New England seaports of [[Boston]], [[Salem, Massachusetts|Salem]], [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]], [[Newport, Rhode Island|Newport]], and [[New London, Connecticut|New London]], among others. Much of the profit from trading was reinvested in the textile and machine tools industries.<ref>Knights (1991)</ref>

=== Post-Independence ===
After 1800, Yankees spearheaded most American reform movements, including those for the abolition of slavery, temperance in use of alcohol, increase in women's political rights, and improvement in women's education. [[Emma Willard]] and [[Mary Lyon]] pioneered in the higher education of women, while Yankees comprised most of the reformers who went South during [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] in the late 1860s to educate the [[Freedman|Freedmen]].<ref>Taylor (1979)</ref>

Historian John Buenker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest:
[[File:Old State House and State Street, Boston 1801.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Boston]], [[New England]] capital]]
<blockquote>Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life.  They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stock ambitions.  Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior….  This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the [[Forty-Eighters]].<ref>{{cite book |contribution=Wisconsin |author-first=John |author-last=Buenker |editor-first=James H. |editor-last=Madison |editor-link1=James H. Madison |title=Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TMUCo0UXCjoC&pg=PA72 |year=1988 |publisher=Indiana University Press |pages=72–73 |isbn=0253314232}}</ref></blockquote>
Yankees dominated New England, much of upstate New York, and much of the upper Midwest, and were the strongest supporters of the new Republican party in the 1860s. This was especially true for the [[Congregationalists]], [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], and Methodists among them. A study of 65 predominantly Yankee counties showed that they voted only 40 percent for the [[Whig Party (United States)|Whigs]] in 1848 and 1852, but became 61–65 percent [[History of the Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] in presidential elections of 1856 through 1864.<ref>Kleppner p 55</ref>

[[Ivy League]] universities remained bastions of old Yankee culture until well after [[World War II]], particularly [[History of Harvard University|Harvard]] and [[Yale University|Yale]].

==Stereotypes==
[[File:President Calvin Coolidge.jpg|thumb|200px|President [[Calvin Coolidge]] of New England]]
President [[Calvin Coolidge]] exemplified the modern Yankee stereotype. Coolidge moved from rural [[Vermont]] to urban [[Massachusetts]] and was educated at elite [[Amherst College]]. Yet his flint-faced, unprepossessing ways and terse rural speech proved politically attractive. "That Yankee twang will be worth a hundred thousand votes", explained one Republican leader.<ref>William Allen White, ''A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge'' (1938) p. 122.</ref> Coolidge's laconic ways and dry humor were characteristic of stereotypical rural "Yankee humor" at the turn of the 20th century.<ref>Arthur George Crandall, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AhXdAf0lBqwC&dq=%22new+england+joke+lore%22&pg=PA13 ''New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor''], (F.A. Davis Company, 1922).</ref>

[[Yankee ingenuity]] was a worldwide stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how," self-reliance, and individual enterprise.<ref>Eugene S. Ferguson, "On the Origin and Development of American Mechanical 'know-how'", ''American Studies'' 3.2 (1962): 3–16. [https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2075/2034 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129061641/https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2075/2034 |date=2014-11-29 }}</ref> The stereotype first appeared in the 19th century. As Mitchell Wilson notes, "Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial days."<ref>quoted in Reynold M. Wik, "Some interpretations of the mechanization of agriculture in the Far West." ''Agricultural History'' (1975): 73–83. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742110 in JSTOR]</ref> The great majority of Yankees gravitated toward the burgeoning cities of the northeast, while wealthy New Englanders also sent ambassadors to frontier communities where they became influential bankers and newspaper printers. They introduced the term "Universal Yankee Nation" to proselytize their hopes for national and global influence.<ref>Susan E. Gray, ''The Yankee West: community life on the Michigan frontier'' (1996) p. 3</ref>

==Religion==
New England Yankees originally followed the [[Puritan]] tradition, as expressed in [[Congregationalism in the United States#17th century|Congregational]] and [[Baptists in the United States#17th century|Baptist]] churches. Beginning in the late colonial period, many became [[Presbyterian Church in the United States of America#Colonial era|Presbyterians]], [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalians]], [[Methodism|Methodists]], or, later, [[Unitarianism|Unitarians]]. Strait-laced 17th-century moralism as derided by novelist [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] faded in the 18th century. The [[First Great Awakening]] under [[Jonathan Edwards (theologian)|Jonathan Edwards]] and others in the mid-18th century, and the [[Second Great Awakening]] in the early 19th century under [[Charles Grandison Finney]] and others emphasized personal piety, revivals, and devotion to civic duty.

==Historic uses==
===Yankee Doodle===
{{main|Yankee Doodle}}

[[File:Boston1775.jpg|thumb|200px|Loyalist newspaper cartoon from [[Boston]] ridicules "Yankie Doodles" militia who have encircled the British forces inside the city.]]
A pervasive influence on the use of the term throughout the years has been the [[Yankee Doodle|song "Yankee Doodle"]] which was popular during the [[American Revolutionary War]] (1775–1783). The song originated among the British troops during the French and Indian or Seven Years' War, creating a stereotype of the Yankee simpleton who stuck a feather in his cap and thought that he was stylish,<ref name="abcnews">{{cite news|last1=Mooney|first1=Mark|title='Yankee Doodle Dandy' Explained and Other Revolutionary Facts|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/yankee-doodle-dandy-explained-revolutionary-facts/story?id=24314207|access-date=6 May 2016|publisher=ABC News|date=14 July 2014}}</ref> but it was rapidly re-appropriated by American patriots after the [[battles of Lexington and Concord]]. Today, "Yankee Doodle" is the official [[List of U.S. state songs|state song]] of Connecticut.<ref>See Connecticut State Library, [http://www.cslib.org/yankeedoodle.htm "Yankee Doodle, the State Song of the State of Connecticut"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071226183408/http://www.cslib.org/yankeedoodle.htm |date=2007-12-26 }}</ref>

===Canadian usage===
An early use of the term outside the United States was in the creation of [[Sam Slick]] the "Yankee Clockmaker" in a newspaper column in [[City of Halifax|Halifax]], [[Nova Scotia]], in 1835. The character was a plain-speaking American who becomes an example for Nova Scotians to follow in his industry and practicality; his uncouth manners and vanity were qualities that his creator detested. The character was developed by [[Thomas Chandler Haliburton]], and it grew between 1836 and 1844 in a series of publications.<ref name = DCB>Cogswell, F. (2000).[http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=38597 Haliburton, Thomas Chandler]. ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online,'' Volume IX 1861–1870. University of Toronto/Université Laval. Retrieved on: 2011-08-15.</ref>

===Damn Yankee===
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The ''damned Yankee'' usage dates from 1812.<ref name="Mathews" /> Confederates popularized it as a derogatory term for their Northern enemies during and after the [[American Civil War]] (1861–1865). Rhode Island Governor [[Bruce Sundlun]] had been a pilot in World War II, and he named his [[Boeing B-17|B-17F]] bomber ''Damn Yankee'' because a crewman from North Carolina nicknamed him with that epithet.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/464|title=41-24557 B-17 FLYING FORTRESS|publisher=American Air Museum in Britain|access-date=21 Feb 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/128810-my-68th-anniversary-tribute-to-b17-f-damn-yankee|title=My 68th Anniversary Tribute to B17-F Damn Yankee|author=Johann Willaert|date=December 2011 |publisher=The US Militaria Forum|access-date=21 Feb 2019}}</ref>

==Contemporary uses==
===In the United States===
The term ''Yankee'' can have many different meanings within the United States that are contextually and geographically dependent. Traditionally, ''Yankee'' was most often used to refer to a New Englander descended from the settlers of the region, thus often suggesting Puritanism and thrifty values.<ref>Bushman, (1967)</ref> By the mid-20th century, some speakers applied the word to any American inhabiting the area north of the [[Mason–Dixon Line]], though usually with a specific focus still on New England. ''New England Yankee'' might be used to differentiate.<ref>David Lauderdale [https://web.archive.org/web/20101226172934/http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/12/23/1489118/a-white-christmas-so-close-but.html A white Christmas – so close, but yet so far]. islandpacket.com (2010-12-23)</ref> However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. For example:

{{blockquote|Certainly the Irish have for years complained of Yankee discrimination against them.|William F. Whyte<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Whyte|first1=William F.|author-link=William Foote Whyte|title=Race Conflicts in the North End of Boston|journal=The New England Quarterly|date=December 1939|volume=12|issue=4|pages=623–642|doi=10.2307/360446|jstor=360446}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|There were no civil rights groups then. Even the Federal Government was controlled by bigoted Yankees and Irish who banded together against the Italian immigrant.|Fred Langone<ref>{{cite book|last1=Langone|first1=Fred|author-link=Frederick C. Langone|title=The North End: Where It All Began|publisher=Post-Gazette, American Independence Edition|location=Boston|date=1994|page=3}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|The one anomaly of this era was the election of Yankee Republican Leverett Saltonstall as governor in 1938, and even then Saltonstall jokingly attributed his high vote totals in Irish districts to his 'South Boston face'.|Stephen Puleo<ref>{{cite book|last1=Puleo|first1=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jET-HIcybREC&pg=PA185|page=185|title=The Boston Italians|date=2007|publisher=Beacon Press|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-8070-5036-1}}</ref>}}

In the Southern United States, the term is used in derisive reference to any Northerner, especially one who has migrated to the South and maintains derisive attitudes towards Southerners and the Southern way of life. Alabama lawyer and author Daniel Robinson Hundley describes the Yankee as such in ''Social Relations in Our Southern States'':
<blockquote>Yankee with all these is looked upon usually as a term of reproach—signifying a shrewd, sharp, chaffering, oily-tongued, soft-sawdering, inquisitive, money-making, money-saving, and money-worshipping individual, who hails from Down East, and who is presumed to have no where else on the Globe a permanent local habitation, however ubiquitous he may be in his travels and pursuits.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hundley|first=Daniel|url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/hundley/hundley.html|title=Social Relations in Our Southern States|year=1860|pages=130}}</ref></blockquote>
Senator [[J. William Fulbright]] of Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, "The very word 'Yankee' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of the [[Atlanta Campaign|burning of Atlanta]] and [[Sherman's March to the Sea]], or of an ancestral farmhouse burned by [[Quantrill's Raiders]]".<ref>Fulbright's statement of March 7, 1966, quoted in Randall Bennett Woods, "Dixie's Dove: J. William Fulbright, The Vietnam War and the American South," ''The Journal of Southern History'', vol. 60, no. 3 (Aug., 1994), p. 548.</ref> [[Ambrose Bierce]] defines the term in ''[[The Devil's Dictionary]]'' as: "In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)"

Humorously drawn distinctions, often attributed to [[E. B. White]]:

{{poemquote|To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.*<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/yankee/|title=Yankee|date=2012-11-19|work=National Geographic Society|access-date=2018-09-23|language=en}}</ref>

*A variant ending with "eats it with a knife" has been attributed to Steve Sherman, the author of the 1985 book ''Basic Yankee''}}

Major League Baseball's [[New York Yankees]] acquired the name from journalists after the team was enfranchised in {{mlby|1903}}, though they were officially known as the Highlanders until {{mlby|1913}}. The regional [[Yankees–Red Sox rivalry]] can make the utterance of the term "Yankee" unwelcome to some fans in New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/playoffs/2004-10-20-yanks-sox-rivalry_x.htm |title=Red Sox-Yankees is baseball's ultimate rivalry |last1=Bodley |first1=Hal |date=October 20, 2004 |newspaper=USAToday.com }}</ref>

The term ''[[Swamp Yankee]]'' is sometimes used in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants, although it is often regarded as a derogatory term.<ref name=ruth /> Scholars note that the famous Yankee "twang" survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England, though it is disappearing even there.<ref>Fisher, ''Albion's Seed'' p. 62; Edward Eggleston, ''The Transit of Civilization from England to the U.S. in the Seventeenth Century''. (1901) p. 110; Fleser (1962)</ref>

Mark Twain's 1889 novel ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' popularized the word as a nickname for residents of Connecticut, and Connecticut Air National Guard unit [[103d Airlift Wing]] is nicknamed "The Flying Yankees."

===In other countries===
[[File:Yankee go home Liverpool.jpg|thumb|"Yankee, go home", anti-American banner in [[Liverpool]], United Kingdom]]
The shortened form ''Yank'' is used as a derogatory, pejorative, playful, or colloquial term for Americans in Britain,<ref>David Reynolds, ''Rich relations: the American occupation of Britain, 1942-1945'' (1995)</ref> Australia,<ref>Eli Daniel Potts, and Annette Potts, ''Yanks Down Under, 1941-45: The American Impact on Australia'' (1985).</ref> Canada,<ref>J. L. Granatstein, ''Yankee Go Home: Canadians and Anti-Americanism'' (1997)</ref> South Africa,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/hippies-muslims-and-yanks-march-against-bush-109451|title=Hippies, Muslims and Yanks march against Bush|website=IOL News|agency=South African Press Association|date=9 July 2003|language=en}}</ref> Ireland,<ref>Mary Pat Kelly, ''Home Away from Home: The Yanks in Ireland'' (1995)</ref> and New Zealand.<ref>Harry Bioletti, ''The Yanks are Coming: The American Invasion of New Zealand, 1942-1944'' (1989)</ref> The full ''Yankee'' may be considered mildly derogatory, depending on the country.<ref>John F. Turner and Edward F. Hale, eds. ''Yanks Are Coming: GIs in Britain in WWII'' (1983)</ref>  The Spanish variation ''yanqui'' is used in Latin American Spanish,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yanqui |title=Definition of YANQUI |website=merriam-webster.com |language=en |access-date=2019-12-22}}</ref> often derogatorily.<ref>{{cite news| title=Opinion — Why They Paint 'Yanqui Go Home' | newspaper=The New York Times | date=30 June 1985 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/30/opinion/why-they-paint-yanqui-go-home.html|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Venezuelan Spanish has the word {{lang|es|pitiyanqui}} derived around 1940 from ''petit yankee'' or ''petit yanqui'',<ref>{{cite news| title=Venezuela's New Little Insult: 'Pitiyanqui' |first=Simon|last=Romero| newspaper=The New York Times | date=6 September 2008 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06venez.html|url-status=live|url-access=subscription|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516124529/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06venez.html|archive-date=16 May 2023}}</ref> a derogatory term for those who profess an exaggerated and often ridiculous admiration for anything from the United States.

In Australia, the term ''seppo'', shortened from traditional [[rhyming slang]] ''yank'' ==> ''septic tank'', is sometimes used as a pejorative reference to Americans.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Burridge | first1 = Kate | last2= Manns | first2 =  Howard|title=Get yer hand off it, mate, Australian slang isn't dying |url=https://lens.monash.edu/@howard-manns/2018/01/24/1303584/get-yer-hand-off-it-mate-australian-slang-isnt-dying |website=Lens |publisher=[[Monash University]] | date= 25 January 2018 | author1-link = Kate Burridge}}</ref>

In Finland, the word ''jenkki'' is sometimes used to refer to any American citizen, and ''Jenkkilä'' or ''Jenkit'' refers to the United States itself. It is not considered offensive or anti-American, but rather a colloquial expression. In Sweden, the word ''jänkare'' is a derivative of Yankee that is used to refer to both American citizens and classic American cars from the 1950s that are popular in rural Sweden.<ref>[http://www.h-net.msu.edu/gateways/migration/threads/identity/disc-southernS96.html Comments on H-South by Seppo K J Tamminen]. h-net.msu.edu</ref>

====Japan====
[[File:ヤンキー.jpg|thumb|A man dressed as a 1990s Japanese ''yankī'' (2015)]]
In the late 19th century, the Japanese were called "the Yankees of the East" in praise of their industriousness and drive to modernization.<ref>{{cite book | first=William Eleroy | last=Curtis | author-link=William Eleroy Curtis | title=The Yankees of the East, Sketches of Modern Japan|publisher=Stone & Kimball| location=New York | year=1896|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FSULAAAAYAAJ}}</ref> In Japan, the term {{Nihongo|''yankī''|ヤンキー}} has been used since the late 1970s to refer to a type of delinquent youth associated with motorcycle gangs and frequently sporting dyed blond hair.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Asahi |first1=Yoshiyuki |last2=Usami |first2=Mayumi |last3=Inoue |first3=Fumio |title=Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics |date=4 April 2022 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-1-5015-0147-0 |page=443 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BIlnEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA443 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Maynard |first1=Senko K. |title=Exploring the Self, Subjectivity, and Character across Japanese and Translation Texts |date=17 January 2022 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-50586-5 |page=205 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_xZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA205 |language=en}}</ref><ref>[http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/223508/m0u/%E3%83%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC/ Daijirin dictionary], [http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=ヤンキー&stype=0&dtype=0 Yahoo! Dictionary] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090804061906/http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8 |date=2009-08-04 }}</ref>

====South Korea====
Around the [[United States Army Military Government in Korea|American occupation of Korea]] and the [[Korean War]] periods, Korean black markets that sold smuggled American goods from military bases were called "yankee markets" ({{Korean|hangul=양키시장}}).<ref name="Cho2">{{Cite news |last=Cho |first=Grace M. |date=22 August 2014 |title=Eating military base stew |work=[[Contexts]] |url=https://contexts.org/articles/eating-military-base-stew/ |url-status=live |access-date=29 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170623180751/https://contexts.org/articles/eating-military-base-stew/ |archive-date=23 June 2017}}</ref> The term "yankee" is now generally viewed as an [[Anti-American sentiment in Korea|anti-American slur in South Korea]],<ref>{{Cite news |date=2021-12-01 |title=Controversy over Psy's anti-American lyrics might be based on shoddy translation |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/11/controversy-over-psys-anti-american-lyrics-might-be-based-on-shoddy-translation/ |access-date=2023-08-20 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> and is often used in the exclamation "Yankee go home!" ({{Korean|hangul=『양키 고 홈!』|labels=no}}).{{cn|date=September 2025}}

==See also==
{{Portal|United States}}
{{col div}}
* [[Dixie]], a term used to refer to the Southern United States
* [[Brother Jonathan]]
* [[Nutmegger]]
* [[Carpetbagger]], Northerners in the South during Reconstruction
* [[26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade]] (Yankee Division)
* [[Jonkheer]]
* [[Anti-Americanism]]
* [[Yankee Doodle Dandy]]
* [[Yankee ingenuity]]
* ''[[Yanks Go Home]]'', British sitcom
* [[British people|Brit]]
* [[Canuck]]
* [[Aussie]]
* [[Kiwi (nickname)|Kiwi]]
* [[Boer]]
* [[Farang]]
* [[WASP]]
* [[Gringo]]
{{col div end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Further reading===
* Beals, Carleton; ''Our Yankee Heritage: New England's Contribution to American Civilization'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1939888 (1955) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101028100637/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1939888 |date=2010-10-28 }}
* Conforti, Joseph A. ''Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106235083 (2001) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812004330/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106235083 |date=2011-08-12 }}
* Bushman, Richard L. ''From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765'' (1967)
* Daniels, Bruce C. ''New England Nation: The Country the Puritans Built'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) 237 pp. [https://www.amazon.com/New-England-Nation-Country-Puritans/dp/113702562X/  excerpt and text search]
* Ellis, David M. "The Yankee Invasion of New York 1783–1850". ''New York History'' (1951) 32:1–17.
* [[Fischer, David Hackett]]. ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]'' (1989), Yankees comprise one of the four
* Gjerde; Jon. ''The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=37104314 (1999) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091216105311/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=37104314 |date=2009-12-16 }}
* Gray; Susan E. ''The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=37104065 (1996) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501160331/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=37104065 |date=2009-05-01 }}
* Handlin, Oscar. "Yankees", in ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups,'' ed. by Stephan Thernstrom, (1980) pp 1028–1030.
* Hill, Ralph Nading. ''Yankee Kingdom: Vermont and New Hampshire.'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1805631 (1960).] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605041927/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1805631 |date=2011-06-05 }}
* Holbrook, Stewart H. ''Yankee Exodus: An Account of Migration from New England'' (1950)
* Holbrook, Stewart H.; ''Yankee Loggers: A Recollection of Woodsmen, Cooks, and River Drivers'' (1961)
* Hudson, John C. "Yankeeland in the Middle West", '' [[Journal of Geography]]'' 85 (Sept 1986)
* [http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1391.html Jensen, Richard. "Yankees" in ''Encyclopedia of Chicago'' (2005).]
* Kleppner; Paul. ''The Third Electoral System 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures'' University of North Carolina Press. 1979, on Yankee voting behavior
* Knights, Peter R.; ''Yankee Destinies: The Lives of Ordinary Nineteenth-Century Bostonians'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94816324 (1991) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101028045040/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94816324 |date=2010-10-28 }}
* Mathews, Lois K. ''The Expansion of New England'' (1909).
* Piersen, William Dillon. ''Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England'' (1988)
* Power, Richard Lyle. ''Planting Corn Belt Culture'' (1953), on Indiana
* Rose, Gregory. "Yankees/Yorkers", in Richard Sisson ed, ''The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia'' (2006) 193–95, 714–5, 1094, 1194,
* Sedgwick, Ellery; ''The Atlantic Monthly, 1857–1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide and Ebb'' [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=11038856 (1994) online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501194119/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=11038856 |date=2009-05-01 }}
* Smith, Bradford. ''Yankees in Paradise: The New England Impact on Hawaii'' (1956)
* Taylor, William R. ''Cavalier and Yankee: The Old South and American National Character'' (1979)
* WPA. ''Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People.'' Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts (1937).

'''Linguistic'''
* Davis, Harold. "On the Origin of Yankee Doodle", ''American Speech,'' Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1938), pp.&nbsp;93–96 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/451952 in JSTOR]
* Fleser, Arthur F. "Coolidge's Delivery: Everybody Liked It." ''Southern Speech Journal'' 1966 32(2): 98–104. {{ISSN|0038-4585}}
* Kretzschmar, William A. ''Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States'' (1994)
* Lemay, J. A. Leo "The American Origins of Yankee Doodle", ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 33 (Jan 1976) 435–64 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1921542 in JSTOR]
* Logemay, Butsee H. "The Etymology of 'Yankee'", ''Studies in English Philology in Honor of Frederick Klaeber'', (1929) pp 403–13.
* Mathews, Mitford M. ''A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles'' (1951) pp 1896 ff for elaborate detail
* [[H. L. Mencken|Mencken, H. L.]] [[The American Language]] (1919, 1921)
* ''The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories'' (1991)
* ''Oxford English Dictionary''
* Schell, Ruth. "Swamp Yankee", ''American Speech'', 1963, Volume 38, No.2 pg. 121–123. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/453288 in JSTOR]
* Sonneck, Oscar G. ''Report on "the Star-Spangled Banner" "Hail Columbia" "America" "Yankee Doodle"'' (1909) [https://books.google.com/books?id=dSqWAvMJbuYC&dq=yankee+etymology&pg=PA83 pp 83ff online]
* [[Karen Stollznow|Stollznow, Karen]]. 2006. "Key Words in the Discourse of Discrimination: A Semantic Analysis. PhD Dissertation: University of New England., Chapter 5.

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{EB1911 poster|Yankee}}
* [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Yankee Online Etymology Dictionary]
* [http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/yankee/ Wordorigins.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206011455/http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/yankee/ |date=2017-12-06 }}

{{Ethnic slurs}}

[[Category:Culture of the United States]]
[[Category:American regional nicknames]]
[[Category:Anti-Americanism]]
[[Category:English-American history]]
[[Category:English words]]
[[Category:Ethnic and religious slurs]]
[[Category:New England]]
[[Category:Regional nicknames]]