I did Not Know This.

 

 

 

Yankee (yan’ke’), n.

(circa 1882)

YANKEE TAKEN FROM – THE IMPERIAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

 

(A word of uncertain origin. The most common explanation seems also the most plausible, namely, that it is a corrupt pronunciation of English or of Fr. Anglais formerly current among the American Indians.

   In Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms a statement is quoted to the effect that Yengees or Yenkees was a name originally given by the Massachusetts Indians to the English colonists, and that it was afterwards adopted by the Dutch on the Hudson, who applied the term in contempt to all the people of New England.

 Bartlett also quotes a statement of Heck-welder (an authority on Indian matters), who affirmed that the Indians applied the term Yengees specially to the New Englanders as contradistinguished  from the Virginians or Long Knives, and the English proper or Saggenash. As early as 1713 it is said to have been a common cant word at Cambridge, Mass, in the sense of good or excellent, being probably borrowed by the students from the Indians, to whom a ‘ Yankee’ article would be synonymous with an excellent one, from the superiority of the white man in mechanical arts.)

 A cant name for a citizen of New England.

During the American Revolution the name was applied to all the insurgents; and during the civil war it was the common designation of the Federal soldiers by the Confederates.   In Britain the term is sometimes applied generally to all natives of the United States.

 

Yankee – Doodle (yang-ke-do’di), n

A famous air, now regarded as American and national.   In reality the air is an old English one, called Nankey Doodle, and had some derisive reference to Cromwell.    It is said that the brigade under Lord Percy, after the battle of Lexington, marched out of Boston playing this tune in derisive and punning allusion to the name Yankee, and the New Englanders adopted the air in consideration of the fact that they had made the British dance to it.

The really national tune of the whole United States, however, is ‘Hail, Columbia!  -2 A Yankee. ‘Hot Yankee-doodles,’                   Moore. (Ludicrous.)

The really national tune of the whole United States, however, is ‘Hail, Columbia!  -2 A Yankee. ‘Hot Yankee-doodles,’                   Moore. (Ludicrous.)