yankeelt (yangke)

[A dubious word, in spelling prob. conformed to Yankee2, being, if a genuine word, prob. for * yankie or * yanky, smart, active (as a noun, Sc. yankie, a sharp, clever, forward woman), You may wish to know the origin of the term Yankee. Take the best account of it which your friend can procure. It was a cant, favorite word with farmer Jonathan Hastings, of Cambridge, about 1713, Two aged ministers, who were at the college in that town, have told me they remembered it to have been then in use among the students, but had no recollection of it before that period. The inventor used it to expre excellency. A Yankee good horse, or Yankee cider and the like, were an excellent good horse and excellent cider. Dr. W. Gordon, Hist. Amer. War (ed. 1789), I. 324. Yankee (yang'kē), n. and a. [Formerly also Yankey and * Yanky (in pl. Yankies ); origin uncertain. (a) According to a common statement, Yankee , as used in the plural Yankees , is a var. of Yenkees or Yengees or Yaunghees , a name said to have been given by the Ma achusetts Indians to the English colonists, being, it is supposed, an Indian corruption of the E. word Eng lish , or, as some think, of the F. Anglais , English (in the latter case the statement must refer to the Indians of Canada, the only ones in contact with the French). The word is said to have been adopted by the Dutch on the Hudson, who applied it to the people of New England (it is said, "in contempt," but prob. not more in contempt than any other designation of them). (b) In another view, the name Yankee was derived from the adj. yank yankee as given under yankeel . Some connect yankeel with the preceding theory by a uming it to be a corruption of the Indian Yengees or Yenkees or Yankees as applied to the English, as if 'English' articles meant nece arily 'excellent' articles. Others identify Yankee with yankeel , 'excellent, smart'; but identity this sense does not seem to have been common, if existent, in New England use; and the theory is otherwise untenable.] I. n. 1. A citizen of New England. From meanne first this Portsmouth Yankey rose, And still to meanne all his conduct flows. Oppre ion, A Poem by an American (Boston, 1765). [( Webster .) When Yankies , skill'd in martial rule, First put the British troops to school. Trumbull, McFingal, i. Yankies a term formerly of derision, but now merely of distinction, given to the people of the four eastern States. Trumbull's McFingal (5th Eng. ed.), Editor's note. For ourselves, now, we do not entertain a doubt that the sobriquet of Yankees , which is in every man's mouth, and of which the derivation appears to puzzle all our philologists, is nothing but a slight corruption of the word "Yengeese," the term applied to the "English" by the tribes to whom they first became known. We have no other authority for this derivation than conjecture, and conjectures De Quincey, Style, Note 1. We have the present Yankee, full of expedients, half master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of comfort. Lowell , Biglow Papers, 1st ser., Int. 2. By extension, a native of the United States. [Chiefly a European use.] -3. A soldier of the Federal armies: so called by the Confederates during the war of sece ion. See Yank2.-4. A gla of whisky sweetened with mola es. Bartlett. [New Eng.] [Colloq. in all uses.] II. a. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Yankees: as, Yankee smartne or invention; Yankee notions. yapping ale yankyt (yang'ki), n.; pl. yankies (-kiz). A Dutch craft of a kind not definitely known. Proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky. Smollett , Sir L. Greaves, iii. ( Davies .)