Definition of: Yankee

(yang′kē) noun
1. Originally, a native or inhabitant of New England.
2. A Northerner; especially, a Federal soldier during the Civil War: so called in the South.
3. Any citizen of the United States; an American: a foreign, chiefly British, usage.
—adjective
1. Of or pertaining to the Yankees.
2. Brit. American. [Prob. back formation <Jan Kees (taken as a plural), John Cheese, orig. a nickname for a Hollander; later applied by Dutch colonists in New York to English settlers in Connecticut]