The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Yankee

YANKEE, a familiar term applied in the United States to the inhabitants of the New England states, and after the outbreak of the civil war of 1861 employed by the inhabitants of the seceded states to designate those who remained loyal to the government. Foreigners have generally applied the term indiscriminately, and habitually in a disparaging sense, to all inhabitants of the United States. Of the many etymologies assigned to the word, the most probable is that of Heckewelder, viz.: that it is a corruption of the word English by the North American Indians, who pronounced it Yenghees or Yanghees.