yank - definition of yank - synonyms, pronunciation, spelling from Free Dictionary

Open English WordNet

an American who lives in the North (especially during the American Civil War)Synonyms: Yankee NorthernerType of AmericanKinds Federal, Federal soldierMember of Northern United States, North
an American (especially to non-Americans)Synonyms: Yankee Yankee-DoodleType of American

pull, or move with a sudden movement“He turned the handle and jerked the door open”Synonyms: jerkMore general pull, draw

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Yank noun

Origin: Cf. Scot. yank a sudden and severe blow.

A jerk or twitch. colloquial (US)

Yank transitive verb [past tense & past participle Yanked; present participle & verbal noun Yanking.]

To twitch; to jerk. colloquial (US)

Yank noun

An abbreviation of Yankee. slang

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54

yank

<jargon> (From the colloquial meaning "to pull suddenly") To insert a copy of some saved text at the current position in a document being edited.

The term is used in the Unix text editors GNU Emacs and vi but "paste" is more common elsewhere. [Used elsewhere?]

(1998-07-01)