Definition of "yankee"

yankee

noun
plural yankees
1. (nautical) A headsail resembling a genoa or a jib but with a high-cut clew, normally used together with a staysail. A sailing boat is typically equipped with three yankee sails of different sizes, number one being the largest.
2. (international standards) Alternative letter-case form of Yankee from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.
3. Obsolete form of Yankee.
  Quotations
  As the coach was by law limited to a slow pace on the bridge, we had leisure to read the wayward fancies of our predecessors inscribed in chalk, and many a true yankee name did we recognize;—the bridge is a kind of traveller’s register.
  1823 May 16, “Tour to the Western States”, in New-England Galaxy, volume VI, number 292, front page, column 2
  The duchess humoured their peculiarities, praised their country, extolled their taste, and joined in their laughter, so that, in a short time, in a short time, a kind of infectious mirth and pride in their bargains took possession of the place, and every one bought something, holding out their purchases to view, and praising them in the words and phraseology of the young yankees, who, finding their own importance, were not slow to avail themselves of it, and walked from stand to stand, wherever beauty attracted them, making comments which had more truth than politeness, but never failed to be well received by those whom they distinguished.
  1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXXIX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 194
  Meanwhile, rumour had been tramping about with her crescit eundô; and, long before the Faculty received our Scytala, they had heard her cry—“The Board has told Major Thorntree, the Faculty shall be tried and turned right out, and shall be sued for damages done the school and the State, and—Woodville, by their unconstitutional, high-hand, big-buggish, aristocratic yankee notions!!”
  1843, Baynard Rush Hall, The New Purchase: Or, Seven and a Half Years in the Far West, page 183
  The quidnunctious yankee woman is posted in gynecology. She never breeds.
  1887, Edward Bond Foote, The Radical Remedy in Social Science - Borning Better Babies through Regulating Reproduction by Controlling Conception - An Earnest Essay on Pressing Problems, Murray Hill Publishing Company, page 130
  And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts.
  1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], part II [Odyssey], page 310