Yank'ee, in America, the popular name for a New Englander, in Great Britain often applied indiscriminately to the whole population of the United States. In its origin it was a corruption of the word English as pronounced by the Indians. It seems to have been first applied about 1775 by the British soldiers, as a term of reproach to the New Englanders, who themselves afterward adopted it. Since the Civil War the southern population have applied it to the northern people generally.