Where did the word Yank come from to mean an American?

Brainy Blonde

It is short for Yankee. The origin of Yankee has been the subject of much debate, but the most likely source is the Dutch name Janke, meaning 'little Jan' or 'little John,' a nickname that dates back to the 1680s. Perhaps because it was used as the name of pirates, the name Yankee came to be used as a term of contempt. It was used this way in the 1750s by General James Wolfe, the British general who secured British domination of North America by defeating the French at Quebec. The name may have been applied to New Englanders as an extension of an original use referring to Dutch settlers living along the Hudson River. Whatever the reason, Yankee is first recorded in 1765 as a name for an inhabitant of New England. The first recorded use of the term by the British to refer to Americans in general appears in the 1780s, in a letter by Lord Horatio Nelson, no less. Around the same time it began to be abbreviated to Yank. During the American Revolution, American soldiers adopted this term of derision as a term of national pride. The derisive use nonetheless remained alive and even intensified in the South during the Civil War, when it referred not to all Americans but to those loyal to the Union. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=yankee Nov 18 02, 6:01 PM

Son of The Household Cavalry

In Rogets Thesaurus it says another word for Yank is Jerk, but none of the Americans I know fit that description. Nov 18 02, 9:50 PM

Discoverer

For 'Janke' as a diminutive of Jan (John) there is an English equivalent: 'Janikin'. The diminutives Janneken, Janke are more Flemish than Dutch. The normal Dutch diminutive of Jan would be Jantje, as in the nickname 'onze Jantjes' which refers to the Marines of the Dutch Royal Navy. Not very clear to me who would have called the likes of Peter Stuyvesant and Peter Minuit 'Jannekens'. Not the Native Americans anyway. Nov 26 02, 12:17 AM

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