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Yankee   /jˈæŋki/   Listen
Yankee

noun
1.
An American who lives in the North (especially during the American Civil War).  Synonyms: Northerner, Yank.
2.
An American who lives in New England.  Synonym: New Englander.
3.
An American (especially to non-Americans).  Synonyms: Yank, Yankee-Doodle.



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"Yankee" Quotes from Famous Books



... Here the struggle for survival continued to wage with all its ancient brutality. Briton and Russian were still to overlap in the Land of the Rainbow's End—and this was the very heart of it—nor had Yankee gold yet purchased its vast domain. The wolf-pack still clung to the flank of the cariboo-herd, singling out the weak and the big with calf, and pulling them down as remorselessly as were it a thousand, thousand generations into the past. The sparse aborigines ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... Feather River. The principal mining towns are Oroville, Bidwell's Bar, Forbestown, Natchez and Whiterock. In 1859 there were seventeen quartz-mills in the county, of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at Columbiaville and Hansonville, three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at Evansville, Gold Run, Long Bar, Nesbitt's Flat and Spring Valley, one each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz-mills, worth fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggregate one hundred and sixty-two and a half tons per ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell

... was an odd mixture of New England and Canuck blood, one branch of his family living in Maine, while the other resided across the border. Hence Perk sometimes chose to call himself a Yankee; and yet for a period of several years he had been a valued member of the Northwestern Mounted Police, doing all manner of desperate stunts up in ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... in the category, banished from the State with the penalty of death if they returned to it, were Charles P. Duane, Billy Mulligan, Billy Carr, Reub. Maloney, Bill Lewis, Martin Gallagher, Woolley Kearney, Yankee Sullivan the pugilist, and John Crowe. These, with the exception of Charley Duane, were all Democrats, devoted to Broderick. Duane had been a Whig, was opposed to the Democrats, yet felt kindly toward Broderick. On the other side—they ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... his book of river maps, and together they looked down the tortuous stream; he rested the tip of his pencil on Yankee Bar ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... hour of ten, and he could tell from the appearance of the street that the sun was already high in the heavens. He went to the window and looked out at the citizens hurrying to and fro about their several errands. From an open window directly across the way resounded the familiar strain of "Yankee Doodle" drawn from a violin by a poor but extremely ambitious musician. He stood for a minute ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... on the back of his head, stand on a small knoll and look down upon the spot where he killed a bear the day before Christmas. It was worth one's while to note the expression upon his countenance as he stood there and as he finally stalked away, whistling Yankee Doodle, with perhaps, a slight lack of precision, but with tremendous spirit ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... their errand have? OR, English to have their ears torn off; and imperious French-Spanish Bourbons, grounding on extinct Pope's-meridians, GLOIRE and other imaginary bases, to take command?" The incalculable Yankee Nations, shall they be in effect YANGKEE ("English" with a difference), or FRANGCEE ("French" with a difference)? A Question not to be closed by Diplomatic putty, try ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... humorous struggle between his sense of the rawness and ugliness of his native land and the dogged patriotism befitting a descendant of the genuine New England Puritans. Hawthorne the novelist writhes at the discords which torture his delicate sensibilities at every step; but instantly Hawthorne the Yankee protests that the very faults are symptomatic of excellence. He is like a sensitive mother, unable to deny that her awkward hobbledehoy of a son offends against the proprieties, but tacitly resolved to see proofs ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... her expulsion from the convent, where they had discovered, even before she left, that she had been in the habit of visiting undesirable persons; and finally she informed him that Jacqueline had gone to Italy with an old Yankee and his daughter—he being a man, it was said, who had laid the foundation of his colossal fortune by keeping a bar-room in a mining camp in California. This last was no fiction, the cut of Mr. Sparks's beard and his unpolished manners left no doubt on the subject; ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... boy living with his mother, who had come from New York. His father had been killed in our army. The little fellow, now Colonel Grier Monroe, of New York city, was much teased at his playmates calling him "Yankee" when he knew he was not one. One day he marched into my father's office in the college, stated his case, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... where no one really has to work very hard to live, nurtured on adventure, scion of a free and merry stock, the real, native Californian is a distinctive type; so far from the Easterner in psychology as the extreme Southerner is from the Yankee. He is easy going, witty, hospitable, lovable, inclined to be unmoral rather than immoral in his personal habits, and above all easy to ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... of striking men who made the Brook Farm "Experiment." He had endeared himself to the old generation of Americans by his war record as a chaplain. To some of the new generation he was known as the Yankee Bishop. But in the hill country, from the Mohawk Valley to the Canadian line and to Lake Champlain, he had one name, The Shepherd of the North. From Old Forge to Ausable to North Creek men knew his ways and felt the beating of the great heart of him behind the stern, ascetic ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... perfectly charming!" said Courtney Thayer. "Where the deuce do these Yankee convent people get that elusive Continental flavor? Her father must have been ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... old Bill Williams, gently, "you bring here still your Yankee way of speech. Besides, 'tis no murder unless some one is killed, and yonder bully Shunan will only have a sore hand for a month or so. 'Twas a lesson that was well needed for him. See now, the camp is quiet already. Men and women may venture out-of-doors in peace and comfort. 'Tis but the law of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... hem'—" said the colonel aloud. "Oh, that infernal Yankee understood, even though he was born in Boston!" And this as coming from a Musgrave of Matocton, may fairly be considered as a sweeping tribute to the author of Give ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... together, the motive power being obtained from sand running through an inverted cone. As for carving, he had ornamented the walls of the house with a profusion of brackets, wall-pockets, and the like, taking his designs of birds or flowers from nature's own pattern. He was, in fact, a veritable young Yankee with his jack-knife, and few were the things he could not fashion with it, and few the principles of physics studied at school which he did not seek to embody or illustrate; and he had advanced beyond the ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... for he was getting more and more hungry now with every passing minute. That twenty-five cents in his pocket felt like it weighed a ton, too, and he wondered if the young fellow, who he saw was a Northerner or a Yankee, as all such are called below Mason and Dixon's line, would wait for him while he exchanged it ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... should have No trials, sir, by jury; That no elections should be held Across the briny waters: "And now," said he, "I'll tax the tea Of all his sons and daughters." Then down he sate in burly state, And blustered like a grandee, And in derision made a tune Called "Yankee doodle dandy." "Yankee doodle"—these are the facts— "Yankee doodle dandy; My son of wax, your tea I'll tax— You—Yankee ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... treaty rights, the enlightened selfishness of the New Englander will find that, "there is money for him" in the development of those resources which have been so singularly neglected by the British capitalists who invest their money in the most rotten schemes that Yankee ingenuity ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk; I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre. There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore, And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore. He would not fly the Rovers' flag — the bloody or the black, But now he floated ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... her hand in mine, and playing with her small fingers in a careless way, said: 'Well, I will give you a hundred profit; but, Larkin,' and I looked him directly in the eye and smiled, 'you cannot intend to come the Yankee over me! I am one of them myself, you know, and understand such things. These people cost you ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... on the subway. It's aboveground—elevated—up here in the Bronx. After a while I see Yankee Stadium off to one side, which is funny because I don't remember seeing it when we were coming up. Pretty soon the train goes underground. I remember then. Coming up, we changed trains once. Ben has his ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville

... surprised when at supper time Sylvia demanded to know what a "Yankee" was. She thought her mother looked a little troubled. But her father smiled. "Yankee is what Britishers ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... he, smiling, as if he read her thoughts. "But I have neither Yankee blood nor education. I was English born; brought up in British Canada, and by ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... go when I damned please, you Yankee jackanapes!" the Greek retorted through set teeth. Yerkes is a free man, able and willing to shoulder his own end of any argument. He closed, and the Greek's ribs cracked under a vastly stronger hug than he had dreamed of expecting. But Coutlass was ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... heard him read aloud the famous “Rainbow Scene” in ‘Silas Marner’ and certain passages in Charles Dickens’s novels. These readings were as fine as Rossetti’s recitations of ‘Jim Bludso’ and other specimens of Yankee humour. And yet it is a common remark, and one that cannot be gainsaid, that there is no spark of humour in the published poems of either of these two friends. Did it never occur to any critic to ask whether the anomaly was not explicable by some ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... called Guallaval seemed to be the most squalid and forlorn of all the stations—outside, an atmosphere of mosquitoes; inside, an atmosphere of brandy and smoke, the master an ague-stricken Yankee, who sat with his bare feet high against the wall, and only deigned to jerk with his head to show in what quarter was the drink and food, and to 'guess that strangers must sleep on the ground, for first-comers had ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Jerseys continued to bear the character impressed on it by the original colonization. West Jersey was predominantly Quaker; East Jersey showed in its institutions of church and school the marks made upon it by the mingling of Scotch and Yankee. But there was one point at which influences had centered which were to make New Jersey the seed-plot of a new growth of church life ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... farmer lived who was also the custodian of the lake. The complacent horse jogged back, and Condy and Blix set about the serious business of the day. Condy had no need to show Richardson the delightful sporting clerk's card. The old Yankee—his twang and dry humor singularly incongruous on that royal morning—was solicitude itself. He picked out the best boat on the beach for them, loaned them his own anchor of railroad iron, indicated minutely the ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... were under water, and as I seemed to be making little progress, I pretty soon sat down in a pleasantly shaded spot. Wagons came along at intervals, all going toward the city, most of them with loads of wood; ridiculously small loads, such as a Yankee boy would put upon a wheelbarrow. "A fine day," said I to the driver of such a cart. "Yes, sir," he answered, "it's a pretty day." He spoke with an emphasis which seemed to imply that he accepted my remark as well meant, but hardly adequate to the occasion. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... After all, walking with an Esquimau belle is not so very different from walking with a Yankee girl: only I fancy it must have looked a little odd; for, as I have already stated, they wore long-legged boots with very broad tops coming above the knee, silver-furred seal-skin breeches, and a ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... wiry little New Brunswicker, born just across the St. Croix, but a thorough-going Yankee by education, business habits, and naturalization. "A Brahmin among the Brahmins," he believed in the New York Tribune, as the purest source of all uninspired wisdom; and bitterly regretted that the manifold avocations of Horace Greeley had thus far prevented that truly great man from enlightening ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... in August and September of last year. The outlines are precisely the same. As shown on the map there were then 40 barracks in the prison square. This number is now increased. The Guard-house and small tents on the west side of the camp are also moved now. The barracks marked "Yankee Barracks" is the correct position of the barracks occupied by the garrison in Garrison Square. The building marked "Douglas House" on the South side of the camp is, I suppose the Douglas University. It is a magnificent building and is located about eighteen or twenty rods from the camp ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... of last night's business? What on earth brings this Yankee idiot here at this time to spoil everything? Now, Teddy, the long and short of this business is, that you must stir yourself. You've shuffled long enough. First of all you were going to marry the widow; you boggled ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... republic? Where in all the country was there to be found such evidences of thriftless dependence as in this city before the cold breath of the North swept down here during the rebellion and imparted a little of 'Yankee' vigor to its business and population? Where within the bounds of professed fidelity to the Government was true loyalty at a lower ebb, and sympathy with the rebellion at higher flood; freedom more hated, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... face before they gripped in holds. The younger man, in no trim for battle, reeled and tried to break away; but the other had him fast, picked him clean off the ground, and, getting in his weight, used a Yankee throw, with intent to drop Will against the granite of the bridge. But though Blanchard went down like a child before the attack, he disappeared rather than fell; and in the pitchy night it seemed as though some amiable deity had caught up the vanquished into air. A ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... only poetry in the egg. The late Horace Mann, in one of his Addresses, commented at some length on the beauty of the French phrase s'orienter, and called on his young hearers to practise it in life. There was not a Yankee in his audience whose problem had not always been to find out what was "about east" and shape his course accordingly. The Germans have a striking proverb; Was die Gans gedacht, das der Schwan vollbracht; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... There is a line cut through the trees all across the islands so that they can see the light-house from Beaufort. I asked Tom who cut it, as I rode over the other day, and he said, "Yankee cut it." "Since the Fort was taken?" "Long time ago." "The old Masters cut it, then?" "No, Secesh neber cut down trees, make nigger do it; poor white men cut 'em." I finally came to the conclusion that it must have been done by the Coast Survey. I daresay they think we are all "poor ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... general opinion in the island that money could do any thing with Jonathan; or, as Christophe is said once to have sententiously expressed the same sentiment, "if there were a bag of coffee in h—-, a Yankee could be found to go and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... not—that is, we know that he is about to sail for St. John's by a clipper now in Belfast, and we shall have a fast steam-corvette ready to catch her in the Channel. He'll be under Yankee colours, it is true, and claim an American citizenship; but we must run risks sometimes, and this is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... agreeable, well-informed young man, a true sailor lad, and like many a Yankee boy, he kept adding to his stock of knowledge where-ever he went. He had drawn some useful charts of seaports and islands he knew about, their products and climates, and really his descriptions were as good as ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... visitors that evening from the Yankee-Doodle-niggery colony, peopled by citizens who are not 'subjects.' Bishop C. C. Pinnock, absent from his home at Cape Mount, dined with us and told me about the death of an old friend, good Bishop Payne. His successor objects to learning and talking ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... of Northern labor, that it thinks. It is intelligence working out through the hands. There is more real thought in a Yankee's hand than in a Southerner's head. This is not true of a class, or of single individuals, or of single States. It pervades the air. It is Northern public sentiment. It springs from our ideas of manhood. These influences, acting through generations, have been wrought into ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... agreement, is distrusted or denied. Yet even to-day, in a region where many causes have made against purity of blood, the traveller in the South is often startled, in some remote town of the Carolinas or of Virginia, at the sight of what can only be characterized as a Southern Yankee. At one's very side in the little church may sit a man who, if met in Boston, would be taken for a Brahmin of the Brahmins. His face is as distinctively a New England one as was Emerson's. High but narrow forehead, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... sent to have the colors brought that way. When they were unfurled and planted before her door, she passed her trembling hands over them and held them close to her eyes that she might view the stars once more. When the band gave her "Yankee Doodle," and the "'Star-Spangled Banner," she sobbed like a child, as did her daughter, a woman of fifty, while her three ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... his impatience, for a tenth of what he might have got had he cared to wait and bargain, mounted his wife and children into his waggon, and moved off into the wilderness." Froude's sarcastic comment is not less characteristic than the story. "Which was the wisest man, the Dutch farmer or the Yankee who was laughing at him? The only book that the Dutchman had ever read was the Bible, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... friend, and was going home to settle his affairs. He hinted also that he was in some government employ in India; and Obed Chute did not seek to know more. Contrary to the generally received view of the Yankee character, he did not show any curiosity whatever, but received the slight information which was given with a delicacy which showed no desire to learn more than Windham ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... proved to have been distant from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not understand that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... the Yankee, looking at him with more admiration than he expected ever to entertain for a Frenchman. "There's five ton of cheeses that have been seven voyages, and a hundred firkins of Irish butter, and five-and-thirty cases of Russian tongues, as old as old Nick, and ne'er ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... Ricardo Guzman's murder was not lacking, for it was generally known that President Potosi had long resented Yankee enmity, particularly as that enmity was directed at him personally. A succession of irritating diplomatic skirmishes, an unsatisfactory series of verbal sparring matches, had roused the old Indian's anger, and it was considered likely that he had adopted this means of permanently ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... you English! When you have ze world to milk, you go to one point and stick. It fails, and you fail. What is zat word?"—Mr. Pericles tapped his brow—"pluck,—you want pluck. It is your decadence. Greek, and Russian, and Yankee, all zey beat you. For, it is pluck. You make a pin's head, not a pin. It is in brain and heart you do fail. You have only your position,—an island, and ships, and some favour. You are no match in pluck. We beat you. And we live ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... by knocks on the bottom of the table. Before entering into the conversation, however, he sat so that Esther's hands and feet were in full view. The ghosts told the number of his watch, also the dates of coins in his pocket, and beat correct time when he whistled the tune of "Yankee Doodle." Chairs continued to fall over until dinner, during which there was a slight ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell

... but I hated to disappoint Eva. Little Arthur must have left his hoop on the lawn, and I tripped on it. We live in the next house, and always come across lots. Doesn't that sound New England-y?" She laughed softly. "My brother says I'll never drop our Yankee phrases. I say pail for bucket, and path for trail, and the other day I ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... a lady and gentleman who manifested an interest in her, and went down to my dinner, and when I paid for it I paid for Kate's also. When I went on deck, I found that I was a lion, and the passengers insisted upon hearing me roar. They asked questions with Yankee pertinacity, and I finally told a select party of them that I had taken Kate out of her step-mother's house by the way of the attic window, but I was careful not to call any names, for if Mrs. Loraine behaved herself, I did not care to expose her ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... tickets were admitted, and by nine the little gate was opened to us. We crushed through somehow, and found ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more occasions than one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work for my breakfast; but for no breakfast did I ever work so hard as for this one. For over two hours I had waited outside, and for over another hour I waited in this packed courtyard. I had had nothing to eat all night, and I was weak and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... U, is a gallant Yankee sea-captain, who picks up an abandoned vessel at sea laden with a valuable cargo of teas, and bravely tows her into port, receiving $200,000 of the proceeds of the sale of her cargo as salvage for his skill and intrepidity. From Mr. Greeley's point of view U is a traitor to his country, ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... the English and Canadian public are prejudiced against 'Yankee propositions.' You yourself couldn't float it in England. On the other hand, I'm Canadian-born, and my name carries weight both in England ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... a necessary part and parcel of education, and the pastime of every leisure hour. The "fiercest nation upon earth," as they were then called, and the freest also, each man of them fought for himself with the self-help and self-respect of a Yankee ranger, and once bidden to do his work, was trusted to carry it out by his own wit as best he could. In one word, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... OF NEW ENGLAND DURING THE WAR OF 1812. This cartoon represents Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island contemplating jumping into the arms of John Bull, while Maine prays below for guidance. The King says "Oh 'tis my Yankee boys, jump in, my fine fellows, plenty molasses and codfish, plenty of goods to smuggle, honours, titles, and nobility into the bargain." Massachusetts, nearest the King, says "What a dangerous leap! but we must jump, Brother Conn." ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... to himself; "fire it and watch it close by, chuckling at them while they roasted. What a glorious return it would be for them. By the powers, it is about the only thing I could do to wipe them all off at once, all, all! Jack, Harvey, Emily, that Yankee braggart—curse him!" ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... dairy-farmers, poultrymen, sheep breeders. The Russian Jew will not in this generation be fit for what might be called long-range farming. He needs crops that turn his money over quickly. With that in sight, he works hard and faithfully. The Yankee, as a rule, welcomes him. He has the sagacity to see that his coming will improve economic conditions, now none too good. As shrewd traders, the two are well matched. The public school brings the children together on equal terms, levelling out any ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... of the Island Midshipman Merrill Ensign Merrill Sword and Pen Valley of Mystery, The Yankee Boys ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... including the great De Lesseps, proved a failure, so to Yankee grit in the person of Goethals belongs the credit for the completed work which is now called the "Eighth Wonder of ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... that it could be printed word for word and appear in good literary form, we recognize that he is not talking ordinary colloquial English—not using the normal spoken language. On the other hand, when the speech of a southern negro or a down-east Yankee is set down in print, as it so often is in the modern "dialect story," we recognize at once that although for the occasion this is written language, it is not normal literary English. It is most desirable that the two forms of speech shall closely correspond, for then the written speech ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... and three at least, who had refused at the festival, greedily drank rum behind a door. But there were others thoroughly consistent. I said the virtues of the race were bourgeois and puritan; and how bourgeois is this! how puritanic! how Scottish! and how Yankee!—the temptation, the resistance, the public hypocritical conformity, the Pharisees, the Holy Willies, and the true disciples. With such a people the popularity of an ascetic Church appears legitimate; in these strict rules, in this perpetual supervision, the weak find their advantage, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... without an escort, and failing to see said escort, he fancied it must be some diminutive child perched upon the horse, and was looking to find him, feeling naturally curious to know how the negroes of Yankee land differed from those of Florida. All this Edith understood afterward, but she was too much excited now to thing of any thing except that she had probably made herself ridiculous in the eyes of Arthur St. Claire, who adroitly rescued her from a fall in the mud, by catching ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... purse, Francis; it is a little commencement of restitution; I would I could offer you more, but I have not yet become a veritable Yankee uncle. I have not discovered a gold mine. Accept at least what I can ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... not ask, "What's he doing?" when discovering Mr. Tressady deep in a chess problem; Belle must not drop into a chair when bringing Timmy out to the porch after his afternoon outing; she must not be heard exclaiming, "Yankee Doodle!" and "What do you know about that!" when her broom dislodged a spider or her ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... the druggist to mix into each pill a pound of good old Yankee ginger," wound up Prescott. "Take four, an hour ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... with nowhere save in the British Isles, and which causes a couple of native Americans, riding in the same compartment, and who are visiting England for the first time, to express their admiration of it all in the unmeasured language of the genuine Yankee when truly astonished and delighted. Arriving in London I lose no time in seeking out Mr. Bolton, a well-known wheelman, who has toured on the continent probably as extensively as any other English cycler, and to whom I bear a letter of introduction. Together, on Monday afternoon, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... advantageous offer from Paige & Davis, if he would undertake the control of "The Bostonian." He filled the editorial chair of that paper for two years, when it was discontinued. He had now plenty to do, and was constantly engaged upon sketches for the "Yankee Blade," "The N. Y. Spirit of the Times," and many other journals and magazines, adopting the signatures, "Falconbridge," "Jack Humphries," "O. K.," "Cerro Gordo," "J. F. K.," etc. During this time he projected "The Aurora ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... Virginia to Alabama the Southern mountaineer was a Yankee, because the national spirit of 1776, getting fresh impetus in 1812 and new life from the Mexican War, had never died out in the hills. Most likely it would never have died out, anyway; for, the world over, any seed of character, individual or ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... was seated on a log and winked his eye at me. "There is an honest man," I thought. "Shake, good sir." In consternation and surprise, I instantly released his hand. "HOW is it possible to be both honest and slippery at the same time! This must be a Yankee-man," thought I. I saw real moss, green and velvety as the richest carpet, and I drank of singing, bubbling waters. Many kinds of berries and nuts, hard to crack, grew in the wild glens of the forest. I gathered flowers, larger and ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... Well, seeing I'm in the hands of a Yankee, there is nothing for it but to concede;" and St. Clare rapidly wrote off a deed of gift, which, as he was well versed in the forms of law, he could easily do, and signed his name to it in sprawling capitals, concluding by a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... being advantageously disposed of, he filled up with sugar, coffee, rum, and other tropical produce, and left for New York, where he found a ready sale for his cargo. At New York he loaded up with manufactured goods and "Yankee notions," and returned to Bermuda to dispose of them, thus completing the round trip; but I still refuse to credit the story of other and less legitimate developments of mercantile enterprise. Of course, should Britain be at war with either France or Spain, and should ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... What endless variety! What pinks of propriety! What gems of sobriety! What garrulous old folks, What shy folks and bold folks, And warm folks and cold folks! Such curious dressing, And tender caressing, (Of course that is guessing.) Such sharp Yankee Doodles, And dandified noodles, And other pet poodles! Such very loud patterns, (Worn often by slatterns!) Such strait necks, and bow necks, Such dark necks and snow necks, And high necks and low necks! With ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... Cockney nor Yankee, but a nasal blend of both: it was a lingo that declined to let the vowels run alone, but trotted them out in ill-matched couples, with discordant and awful consequences; in a word, it was Australasiatic of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... to Zimmermann, the famous litterateur of the Ghetto, "she is proud of Yankee smartness. Only natural." And his light blue eyes followed his wife's pretty figure as she flitted hospitably amongst her guests. Admiration beamed through ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... mentioning our team but according to the dossier we carry on you, Mr. Koslov, you are neither British nor even a Yankee. And you ask me to turn over our ...
— Revolution • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... was made to Stiff, whose countenance indicated that he had no desire to undertake a harder day's march than usual. The effect of the remark was to stir up all the Yankee's pride. ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne

... laughter-maker is! Since Dickens there has been nobody to fill our lungs like Kipling. Is it not better that the public should have 'My Lord the Elephant' and 'Brugglesmith' to laugh outright at than that they should be feebly sniggering over the jest-books begotten on English Dulness by Yankee humour, as they were eight or nine years ago? That jugful of Cockney sky-blue, with a feeble dash of Mark Twain in it, which was called 'Three Men in a Boat' was not a cheerful tipple for a mental bank-holiday, but we poor moderns ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... the rose. Lo! here's a name!-it is the key That will unlock the mystery; This will tell from whom and why Thou didst to my presence hie. Wait-the hand's disguised!-it will Remain to me a mystery still. But I'm a "Yankee," and can "guess" Who wove this flowery, fairy tress. Yea, more than this, I almost know Who tied this pretty silken bow, Whose hand arranged them, and whose taste Each in such graceful order placed. Yet, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... there.... At about twelve o'clock at night I lay down in the field in rear of my command, on a couple of bundles of wheat in the straw. My men had no rations with them. I had picked up a haversack on the field, which was filled with hard biscuits, and had been dropped by some Yankee in his flight, and out of its contents I made my own supper, distributing the rest among a number of officers ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... ancestors fought all the wars and owned all the negroes—he calls them 'niggers'—and married into all the first families of Virginia, and all that sort of thing. He must quite hate himself, poor Fitz, for falling in love with a little Yankee like me. In fact, that's why I made him ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... a Yankee, and is doing all he can to subjugate the free South. He has no rights which we are bound to respect," said ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... a worthy shipmaster, also, who used to trade to Hayti, when that stalwart colored person, Christophe, was the Emperor, who used to say, "Put a bag of coffee in the mouth of h——, and a Yankee will be sure to go after it." On one occasion, so the story ran, Captain H—— complained of some insult from one of Christophe's ragged soldiery. The fact reached the ears of that potentate, who desired to stand ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... return to the Yankee. The form which selfishness takes in his system is not that of the most intensified exclusiveness. You know the story of Rosicrucius' sepulcher, with its ever-burning lamp, guarded by an armor-encased, truncheon-armed statue, which statue, on the entrance of a man who ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on the smooth oak as ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... 1959, hopes ran high for the establishment of a bloc of Latin American States, led by the elected president of Brazil, Joao Goulart, that might act as a bulwark against further "yankee aggression" in Latin America. In 1962 a military coup overthrew Goulart, drove him into exile, jailed and disenfranchised his supporters and lined up Brazil, largest and most populous nation of Latin America, solidly behind the Monroe Doctrine of United ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... did not understand. Perhaps it was against the regulations for a colonel, in full caparison of sword and shoulder straps, to laugh at a joke from a dusty, wayworn, shabby stranger in a dented straw hat and a wrinkled Yankee-made coat. At any rate ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... mother had secured on a plantation. We had no more than reached the place, and made a little fire, when master's two sons rode up and demanded that the children be returned. My mother refused to give us up. Upon her offering to go with them to the Yankee headquarters to find out if it were really true that all negroes had been made free, the young men left, ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton

... and nothing more. He wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. He wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as a term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is so staunch a subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And we find in his book a vast virgin ignorance of the life and ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the Yankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P——West Britons into one Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... to the wind, her foretopsail backed, the brig performing the same movement, when a boat was lowered, and a stout florid man, a Yankee in appearance from truck to kelson, dressed in Quaker costume, came alongside in her. Quickly climbing on deck, without making the usual salutation performed by visitors to a man-of-war, he advanced towards Murray, and introduced himself as Captain Aaron Sturge, of ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... command, and directly beside the young man, who was working diligently over the overturned motorcycle. His repair kit was spread out at the roadside, and the cause of the trouble was self-evident, it would seem. But Walky was a true Yankee and ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... resolution before the United States Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, the German press spoke of us as "hirnverbrannte Yankees," "bornierte Yankeegehirne" ("crazy Yankees," "provincial Yankee intellects"); and the words "Dollarika," "Dollarei," and "Dollarman" are further malicious expressions of their envy, frequently used. The Germans are persistently taught that there are neither scholars nor students ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... through burning, killing and stealing stock, I was in marse's yard. Dey come up whar de boss was standing, told him dere was going to be a battle, grabbed him and hit him. Dey burned his house, stole de stock, and one Yankee stuck his sword to my breast and said fer me to come wid him or he would kill me. O' course I went along. Dey took me as fer as Broad River, on t'other side o' Chapin; then turned me loose and told me to run fast or ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... groaned from breakfast to her rocking-chair, and sat about wondering why Providence had inflicted upon her a weak digestion. Mr. Wrenn also wondered why, sympathetically, but Mrs. Zapp was too conscientiously dolorous to be much cheered by the sympathy of a nigger-lovin' Yankee, who couldn't appreciate the subtle sorrows of a Zapp of Zapp's Bog, allied to all the First ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... people won't stand a nigger's puttin' on such airs. Why, Captain," he continued in a tone which showed that he felt that the fact he was about to announce must carry conviction even to the incredulous heart of the Yankee officer. "You just ought to see his place down at Red Wing. Damned if he ain't better fixed up than lots of white men in the county. He's got a good house, and a terbacker-barn, and a church, and a nigger school-house, and stock, and one of the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... you'd got the Englishman in your boat when you came up river; I thought he looked pretty sick," remarked the fisher, who was a Yankee ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... indomitable perseverance, a quality as necessary to the rise of an artist as genius. On the provincial boards of Toronto he studied and acted for the next few years, perfecting himself in his calling and preparing for wider fields. Then he acted the rollicking Irishman to perfection; the real live Yankee, with his genuine mannerisms and dialect, with proper spirit and without ridiculous exaggeration, and the Negro, so open to burlesque. The special charm of his acting in those characters was his artistic execution. He never stooped to vulgarities, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... bride accustomed as she had been to the simplicity of a home in which the only luxury was in giving help to others. Colonel William C. Preston, the eloquent South Carolina orator, met the "little red-headed Yankee" with distinct aversion to her "want of style and presence," but was soon heard to declare with enthusiastic admiration that she was "an encyclopedia in small print." Here among ancestral trees she found inspiration and in ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... on the train with us, getting in at North Bay, and hailing from Boston way. A common goal and object had served by way of introduction. But the acquaintance had made little progress. This noisy, aggressive Yankee did not suit our fancy much as a possible neighbour, and it was only a slight intimacy between his chief guide, Jake the Swede, and one of our men that kept the thing going at all. They went into camp on Beaver Creek, fifty miles and more to ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... covered with forest-boughs and decorated with wreaths and flags, where the Declaration of Independence was to be read and the oration was to be given. "Yankee Doodle" the band was playing from it when Marley strolled by, and about it were the Washington Rifles, in their pretty uniform of blue and white, waiting to open the programme by a salute and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... character. Tall and angular, there was a little stoop in his shoulders and a little carelessness in his dress. His gait was a long stride, and he was not a graceful horseman. His exterior had a good deal of the typical Yankee, and our Connecticut Reserve in Ohio, from which he came, has as pure a strain of Yankee blood as any in New England. But whoever looked into his sallow and bony face was struck with the effect of his large, serious eye, luminous with intelligence and will. Devotion ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... hardworking, energetic Western man. HAYES is a meddling Yankee. Of course HALL is the better man for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... "He is a Yankee officer; but he has been kind to me, and had me brought out of the fight when I was utterly disabled," said the wounded officer, apparently revived by the stimulant he had taken. "I am grateful to him for ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... in their greeting as though Ester had been always to them the very perfection of a sister; and hadn't little Minie crumpled her dainty collar into an unsightly rag, and given her "Scotch kisses," and "Dutch kisses," and "Yankee kisses," and genuine, sweet baby kisses, in her uncontrollable ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... the same, but somehow seemed cold and empty. It was clean and sweet, but it had so little evidence of being lived in. The old part, which was built of logs, was used as best room, and modeled after the best rooms of the neighboring Yankee homes, only it was emptier, without the cabinet organ and the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... his ten acres enough and his curious broad hoe dexterously wielded the equivalent of shovel and pickaxe. If ignorant of our inventions, he is intimately acquainted with some American products. If a Yankee were to walk into a Portuguese farm-house and surprise the family at dinner, he would be sure to see on the table two articles which, however oddly served, would be in their essentials familiar to him—Indian meal and salt codfish. Indian ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... the earth beneath, in the world of fiction or the world of reality. Of course, it would not do to ask a Spirit whether or not it were some well-known public, or equally well-known fictitious, character. You would be repelled if you should ask a Spirit if it were 'Yankee Doodle,' but I am by no means sure that it would not confess to being 'Cap'en Good'in,' who accompanied Yankee Doodle and his father on their trip to town, and whose name is less familiar in men's mouths. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... a nice crop of Chinese chestnuts on my young Hobson and Zimmerman trees. The 1947 nuts were exceptionally large. One 3-year seedling bore 1 bur with 3 nuts fully as large. Connecticut Yankee bore for the first time, 3 nuts to a bur, but very small, scarcely 1/2" in diameter. (You will notice I budded none of this variety!) ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... in Europe—at all events, we can get a ship there for England. But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; unfortunately, we have only British colors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in particularly high favor with our Yankee cousins just now." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... not play with ideas; generous speculation is regarded as insincere, and shunned as if it might endanger the optimism which underlies success. All this becomes such an insulation against new ideas that when the Yankee goes abroad he takes his ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... "Sam Slick" has passed into popular use as standing for a somewhat conventional Yankee, in whom sharpness and verdancy are combined in curious proportions; but the book which gave rise to the name has long been out of print. It is now revived, under the impression that the reading public will have an interest in seeing a work which, more probably ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... to several factories," she gleefully explained, "here and abroad. A Yankee firm built it. It's ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... in his employ who dared to go to the ballot box. He had left his son but a few thousands out of his large inheritance, and adjured him on his death bed to hold no office under the Federal government and to shoot a Yankee rather than shake his hand. Jack inherited his father's prejudices without his violent temper. He had a contemptuous dislike for the North, a loathing for politics, and adistaste for everybody outside his own diminishing ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... pie, apple-sauce, onions, codfish, and Medford rum,—these were the staple items of the primitive New England larder; and they were an appropriate diet whereon to nourish the caucus-loving, inventive, acute, methodically fanatical Yankee. The bean, the most venerable and nutritious of lentils, was anciently used as a ballot or vote. Hence it symbolized in the old Greek democracies politics and a public career. Hence Pythagoras and his disciples, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,—a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,—it was not these that gave him what the boys called a "kind of a downcasted look." The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the old Yankee farmer knew what he wanted when he paid the price and snuggled his house in the hollow. I am certain the Hermanns knew what they wanted when they bought the whole point and perched their house on the very top of the ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... however, that the American's family built much better than the Englishman's. When the latter noticed that the superior craft of the former were better patronized by the public than his own, he asked the Yankee boys if they wouldn't build some boats in their style for him? "Sartain," they said, "if you'll pay us what Uncle Sammy pays for his'n?" "Aye, of course I wull," said Mr. Bull, "for boats like yon I ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman

... pasture-land of the padres—and the name still clings to the district. Beyond was Mission Cove, now filled in and covered with store-houses, but formerly a convenient landing place for the goods of Yankee skippers who, contrary to Spanish law, surreptitiously traded with ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray

... let Miss De Vere know just how things was managed." In order to do this, it was necessary to employ an amanuensis, and she enlisted the services of the gardener, who wrote her exact language, a mixture of negro, Southern, and Yankee. A portion of this letter we give to ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... correction. She had none of the shibboleth spirit that leads certain people to die or slay for a pronunciation. The pronunciation of the people she was talking to was good enough for her. She conformed also because she hated to see people listening less to what she said than to the Yankee way ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... right in the heart of Yankee Land, the first significant move to supplant foreign labor with native labor, a step which has resulted in one of the biggest upheavals in the North incident to the European war, which has already been a boon to the colored American, improving his economic status ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... thirty lumberers, Yankee and Canadian, were coming and going,— Aleck among the rest,—and from time to time an Indian touched here. In the winter there are sometimes a hundred men lodged here at once. The most interesting piece of news that circulated among them appeared to be, that four horses ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... that as soon as a Yankee baby could sit up in his cradle, he called the nursery to order and proceeded to address the house. If this Parliamentary instinct is irrepressible, if all the year round we are listening to orations, speeches, lectures, sermons, and the incessant, if not always ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... lady sat alone: In her ears were rings of dead men's bone; The brooch on her breast shone white and fine, 'Twas the polished joint of a Yankee's spine; And the well-carved handle of her fan, Was the finger-bone of a Lincoln man. She turned aside a flower to cull, From a vase which was made of a human skull; For to make her forget the loss of her slaves, Her lovers had rifled ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of—a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Yankee Sullivan, prize-fighter, ballot-box stuffer and political plug-ugly, killed himself in Vigilante quarters, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... sailors and marines gathered at their appointed posts. The drum of the Reindeer responded to the challenge, and with her sails reduced to fighting trim, her guns run out, and every man ready, she came down upon the Yankee ship. On her forecastle she had rigged a light carronade, and coming up from behind, she five times discharged this pointblank into the American sloop; then in the light air the latter luffed round, firing her guns as they bore, and the two ships engaged yard-arm ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt



Words linked to "Yankee" :   U.S.A., U.S., United States of America, Federal soldier, federal, the States, America, Union soldier, Yankee corn, New England, US, American, yank, USA, north, Yankee-Doodle, United States, northern



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