"Yank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Marster I'se jes prayin' to Jesus cause I wants to go to Heaven when I dies.' An Marster say, 'Youse my negro. I git ye to Heaven. Git up off'n your knees.' De white folks what owned slaves thought that when dey go to Heaven de collored folk's would be dar to wait on em. An ef'n it was a Yank come 'long, he say too, 'What you prayin' 'bout?' You gives de same 'sponse. An he say, 'We'se gwine save you. We goin' to set you free. You wants to be free, dont you?' 'Yessir, Boss!' 'Well den, Yank say, come go 'long wid me.' Ain ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... got the wrong pig by the ear—why don't they yank Langdon? he's at the bottom of it. It a pretty rich, Andy, isn't it? They hit me heavy over the race, and now they'd like to rule me off for that thief's work," and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... you through, Yank!" cried one, and made a furious onslaught with his bayonet. The other did the same, and although Deck was not touched, Ceph received a severe prick in the right flank. The next instant Deck fired, and one soldier went down, shot ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... more good than carving Andover on the benches. There's not much space left on them, now, and it's still early in the season. Catherine, will you tell us the object of the meeting? Ouch!" for Archie had reached lazily behind her and given one of her yellow braids a gentle yank. ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... "Wake up, Yank, this ship's haunted. There's some one aloft who's been moaning for the last hour. Sounds like the wind in the rigging. I ain't scared of humans or Germans, but when it comes to messin' in with spirits it's time for me to go below. Lend your ear and cast ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... watch. However, there was no help for it, and I turned into an empty bunk and cried myself to sleep. What a voyage that was, to be sure! The ship was a Yankee and so was the master and mates. The crew were of all sorts, Dutch, and Swedes, and English, a Yank or two, and a sprinklin' of niggers. It was one of those ships they call a hell on earth, and cussing and kicking and driving went on all day. I hadn't no regular place give me, but helped the black cook, and pulled at ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... this riotous company. Swiftwater Bill stood up, clinging with one hand to the back of the front seat and waving the other to attract her attention. His lips were pursed for the piercing whistle for which he was famous and which Daylight knew of old, when Daylight, with a hook of his leg and a yank on the shoulder, slammed the startled Bill down into ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... two others had joined the hunt, bent on finishing the Thunderbolt they had cut off. Stan laid over and wobbled around just as though he was hit bad. The Jerry banked and went up a bit to get a better dive. He figured he had plenty of time because the Yank was crippled. That was what Stan wanted. He kicked the Thunderbolt wide open and zoomed for the cloud. Too late the Jerry saw what was up. He roared down through the misty edge of the cloud and barely missed a head-on crash ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... guess I won't," he said, slowly. "You say I'd have to hit out to-morrow; and I reckon I'm going to try an' yank this feller back into the world ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Lord Harry," said one of the Rebels, "I'm a'most done clean gin out, so I am. I'm tireder nor a claybank hoss arter a hard day's plowin', an' I'm ez dry ez a lime-kiln. I motion that we stop yere an' take a rest. We kin put our Yank in the house thar, an' keep him. I wonder whar the spring is that the folks thet lived ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... you drunken wreck," he said in effect, but in much more emphatic words. "Now yank out the right one, and if you ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... snug conviction as to the Past, this smug assurance as to the Future, his mind lay tugging and shivering like a man under a split blanket. Where in creation was the Present? Alternately he tried to yank both Past and Future ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... rattle up bald head, (hic!) if old 2-and-ninepence don't (hic!) shell out with his 'freshments, we'll (hic!) smash this 'ere borrered tea sarvice over his (hic!) figger head." Sayin which he gives the door bell a yank, which was enuff to pull the roof off ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... am reminded," returned Bridge, as the horses started off to the yank of hackamore ropes in the hands of the brigands who were leading them, "of a touching little ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Yank," "who is she, the one we've got?" and when told to ask her, said she was too ill to ask. By and by to ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... iron cross," he said, "and I'm a-goin' to mike me 'ome in Slops! Kipe yer fingers crossed w'en yer go in there, Yank; tike me advice!" ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... were blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of the provost guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him to get into an ambulance. My request was not granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large mansion in front of which were several girls and women apparently making fun of the unwashed "Yank" and evidently enjoying the spectacle. We were halted just as Dolan came limping along supported on one side by a stronger comrade. They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his swollen feet, and they heard of the stern command to shoot any prisoner who fell out or lagged behind. ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the office I saw a Yank—oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... he yelled, his voice cracking into a squall. "Look at me and remember them that's dead and gone, your fathers and your grands'rs, whose old fists used to grip them bars right where you've got your hands. Think of 'em, and then set your teeth and yank the 'tarnal daylights out of her. Are ye goin' to let me stand here—me that has seen your grands'rs pump—and have it said that old Niag'ry was licked by a passul of knittin'-work old-maids, led by an elephant and a peep-show man? Be ye goin' to let 'em outsquirt ye? Why, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... had been a good deal of friendly sparring between the soldiers of the two armies, on picket and where the lines were close together. All rebels were known as "Johnnies," all Union troops as "Yanks." Often "Johnny" would call: "Well, Yank, when are you coming into town?" The reply was sometimes: "We propose to celebrate the 4th of July there." Sometimes it would be: "We always treat our prisoners with kindness and do not want to hurt them;" or, "We are holding ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... he began after lighting a fresh cigar, "a dare-devil driver named Hubbard—'Yank' Hubbard they called him. He was a first-class mechanic, sober and industrious, but notoriously reckless, though he had never had a wreck. The Superintendent of Motive Power had selected him for the post of master-mechanic at Effingham, ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... smiling, when he found a chance to see her alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine thing to happen. A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank him gently away from us now. We'll keep close—eh?—all four ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... 4th. It kept a jealous eye to its charge, conducting them to the desired place with undue rapidity. The day was hot and water scarce. Many of the boys under their heavy loads gave out and laid down to rest. Rebel and Yank laid down together, and as best they could followed up after ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... you are a year older!" he wrathfully answered. "I'll show you a shoving trick or two that you won't like, you blooming Yank!" ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... think of you then, my lady? What'd he think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company with the little woman he'd been making eyes at—whom he was going, in his fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter and redeem ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... a big, husky Yank in "I" Company was brokenly "parlevooing" with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the air and drape himself about the doughboy's neck exclaiming with joy, "My son, my son, my dear sister's son." This is the truth. And he took the Yank over to ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... he?" growled an old tar who overheard him. "If I'd a loose tooth in my head, I'd yank it out 'fore comin' here, for fear some o' them 'fine fellers' ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in his hands for a time and then looked up smilingly and said: 'I done squared myself wid you all fer makin' dat blunner 'bout the Yank. I done gone and dug a tunnel fru fum de coal cellah to the fust storehouse on de fiel'. I fixed a doh to the cellar an' heah's de key ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the underbrush, while some of our men would wave a blanket across the exposed places in the breastwork to draw the Federal fire, while Griffith and his detail kept a sharp lookout. It was not long before they discovered the hidden "Yank" perched in the top of a tall gum tree, his rifle resting in the fork of a limb. Griffith got as close as he well could without danger of being detected by some one under the tree. When all was ready they sighted their rifles ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the dust off my geivehs, and banging his head violently against the floor, he signifies his willingness to relinquish all anticipations of eternal happiness, black-eyed houris and the like, by attempting to yank out even this Celestial hand-hold, hoping that the woeful depth of his anguish and the sincerity of his repentance may prove the means of escaping present punishment. His eyes roll wildly about in their sockets, and in a voice choking with emotion ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the nation of seven (council) fires. This refers to the following division which formerly prevailed among them, viz.:— 1. Mende-Wahkan-toan, or people of the Spirit Lake. 2. Wahkpa-toan, or people of the leaves. 3. Sisi-toan, or Miakechakesa. 4. Yank-toan-an, or Fern leaves 5. Yank-toan, or descended from the Fern leaves. 6. Ti-toan, or Braggers. 7. Wahkpako-toan, or the people ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes", or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee that laid ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... who kept their poilu godsons at the front in good cheer with letters and packages from home, and who took their Yank cousins to their hearts in the same ...
— "I was there" - with the Yanks in France. • C. LeRoy Baldridge
... all others, the first-cabin passengers had the precedence, and filed slowly down one gangplank, their landing-tickets in their hands, while at another the stewards proceeded to yank off the hand-baggage. Dan, leaning over the rail, watched the long line of passengers surging slowly forward, and finally he saw Kasia and her father. He would see them on the pier, of course, for it would take them some time to get their baggage through, and ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... don't ye bother about that," the old man replied, as he gave the wheel a vigorous yank to the right. "This boat was headin' straight fer the shore. She's run in thar so often that she does it of her own accord. She's almost human, this boat is. My! won't Martha git the surprise of her life when she sees us go by. She's wavin' now, blamed if she ain't! an' runnin' ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... then he told me all the scientific talk about time an' astronomy thet I've told you, an' then he tuck me into the thing. Fust thing I knew he give a yank to a lever in the machinery an' there was a big jerk thet near threw me on the back o' my head. I looked out, an' there we was a-flyin' over the country through the air ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... merman gay; I would sit and sing the whole day long; I would fill my lungs with the strongest brine, And squirt it up in a spray of song, And soak my head in my liquid voice; I'd curl my tail in curves divine, And let each curve in a kink rejoice. I'd tackle the mermaids under the sea, And yank 'em around till they yanked me, Sportively, sportively; And then we would wiggle away, away, To the pea-green groves on the coast of day, Chasing each ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... preparing to remove the dirt from Tom's watering eye, the ball of which was a deep pink from irritation. But Tom swung abruptly away from her, went stilting on his high heels to the door, pulled it open with a yank and rounded the corner where the four Boyle children stood leaning against the house, their chilled fingers clasped together so that two hands made one fist, their teeth chattering while they discussed the Swedes and tried to ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... mind, Mother, because you see Jean Roland is used to such fine doings, and this is her first visit to Kentucky. We know you have only three pairs of linen sheets but this seemed the psychological time to use them. I've a great mind to go yank ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... horses by the head, do you, you good-fur-nuthin' Yank? You do, eh? I like your cheek. Touch my horses an' me a-holdin' the lines! Now you hear me? Your traps comes right off here on the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... issued from his lips as the last of the cars rattled away. Then he started off bravely on foot in the wake of the noisy cavalcade. "Now, all of 'em are breakin' the speed laws; an' it's goin' to cost 'em somethin', consarn 'em, when I yank 'em up 'fore Justice Robb tomorrow, sure as ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... is as near as any other house. Here, take hold," she put her arms about the helpless form. "Mercy on us! Lucky if she don't die before we get her there. Make that horse know he's to go. If that whip won't do, yank up a tree and ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... by the way the old man's eyes shine when he mentions it. Yesterday he read me Leith's description of stone hamungas and things that are supposed to have been built before Julius Caesar invaded Britain, and he's pop-eyed with joy as he thinks how he'll yank Fame by the tail when he gets on the ground and snapshots the affairs. Gee! I'm glad I haven't got a kink for digging up relics and dodging about places that went to smash thousands of years ago. A vice like that is more ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... war, the Yankees took all the good mules and horses from the plantation, and left their old army stock. We children chanced to come across one of the Yankees' old horses, that had "U. S." branded on him. We called him "Old Yank" and got him fattened up. One day in August, six of us children took "Old Yank" and went away back on the plantation for watermelons. Coming home, we thought we would make the old horse trot. When ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... down, and really behind you uns, for the run makes a big elbow to the east. I tell you what it is, Yank, you'll see snakes right soon, for our folks ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... him on the other half of the trail and he wouldn't get to Dawson in two years, and then it would be too late. Never saw a man take on so in my life. And when I said I'd let him have it, had to yank him out of the snow again. Told him to consider it in the light of a grubstake. Think he'd have it? No sir! Swore he'd give me all he found, make me rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and all such ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank. ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... "I'll yank somebody out of something if those Yale boys don't pull a length ahead of those Johnny Harvards," sputtered ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that's American you'll praise; The Yank can do no wrong. To use his own expressive phrase, Just ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... to prove to the immigrant in one lesson that he is all wrong? Are you going to undo with a single jerk what it has taken centuries to do? Are you going to take this man and by a sort of patronizing coercion, yank him out himself and leave him, high and dry—nowhere? Or are you going to give him a reasonable time to learn the things of the new world, time to be influenced by the new environment? It took centuries to make him just what ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... wight's been a-writin'!" Then, seated upon the top rail and with his hat set far back on his head, Bud Norris began to declaim inexorably the first two verses, until the indignant author came over and interfered with voice and a vicious yank at Bud's foot, which brought that young man ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... discovered Jumper the Hare sitting under a little hemlock-tree and told him. Then he flew over to the dear Old Briar-patch to tell Peter Rabbit. Of course he told Drummer the Woodpecker, Tommy Tit the Chickadee, and Yank Yank the Nuthatch, who were over in the Old Orchard, and they at once hurried to the Green Forest, for they couldn't think of missing anything so exciting as would be the meeting between Lightfoot and the big stranger ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess
... doubt, distracts the Yank From sinners at his very door; No local cure, he feels, can rank With efforts on a distant shore; His heart to Sinn Fein's gospel wed, And by its beauty deeply bitten, He sends his dollars forth to spread The fear of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... temperish stamping of feet, an infuriate yank of the door-bell, Uncle Wally's chauffeur announced that the limit of his ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... won't be drivin' that timber by floods, when they git to tacklin' these here valleys," he exclaimed. "Old Tom ses when they really git to lumberin' these mountains they'll skid it daown to the railroad tracks and yank it out by steam!" ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... t'other day that Mr. William Condor was getting too d——d stuck up, and that he'd yank him out of his office if he didn't mind his eye. That's you, Condor; so I advise you to look out. It's easy enough to manage Jim, if you take care. He'll go as gently as a well-broke filly; but if he once takes a lurch—if he thinks you're too 'proud' or 'big,' ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... and "Boots" scolded and threatened during half-time. The team had played, declared the latter, like a lot of helpless idiots. What was the matter with them? Did they think they were there to loaf? For two cents Mr. Boutelle would yank the whole silly bunch off the field and finish the game with the second team! He would, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... seen dat foot befoh! (Gives foot a yank) Dat's her ol' trick, Mars Edgah. She jes foolin' yo'! Don' yo' be so soft hearted next time. Yo' jes take her by de back ob de neck ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... one end of the car thar wuz a little round masheen, and the conductor had a clothes line tied to it, and every time he got a nickel he'd yank on that clothes line, and fust it sed in and then it sed out, I couldn't tell what all them little ins and outs meant, but I jist cum to the conclusion it showed how much the conductor wuz in ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... hardware term] Describes any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack mode}. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an {SO} for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity. Also called an {NMI} (non-maskable ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of tourists were looking over the inferno of Vesuvius in full eruption. "Ain't this just like hell?" ejaculated a Yank. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... days, but started from Limington or Saco, as the case might be, at about or somewhere near a certain hour, and arrived at the other end of the route whenever it got there. There were no trains to meet (the railway popularly known as the "York and Yank'em" was not built till 1862); the roads were occasionally good and generally bad; and thus it was often dusk, and sometimes late in the evening, when the lumbering vehicle neared its final destination and drew up to the little post-offices along the way. However ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... an' tells me ter skedaddle, an' 'bout den my missus comes out an' so help me iffen she doan hug dat dratted Yank. Atter awhile I gathers dat he's her brother, but at fust I ain't seed no sense in her cryin' an' sayin' 'thank God', ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... tail would have to be moderately active. If he succeeded, however, it would be a question of the sixteenth part of a second only, whether he had his arms jerked out by the roots and scattered through space or whether he had strength of will sufficient to yank out the withered little frizz and told the quivering ornament in his hands. Few people have the moral courage to follow a buffalo around over half a day holding on by the tail. It is said that a Sioux brave once tried ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a Yank from the U.S.A. Military School at San Diego, and "hiked over the pond as there ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... lightnin' broncho out in the herd That could split the air like a flyin' bird, An' I hinted round in an off-hand way, That, providin' the enterprize would pay, I thought as I might jes' happen to light On a hoss that would leave him out er sight. In less'n a second we seen him yank A roll o' greenbacks out o' his flank, An' he said if we wanted to bet, to name The limit, an' he ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... are honey to my ears," he said as he went on with his work. And I saw it was necessary to yank him ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... of important secret messages, Yank," he said, leaning back in the little iron chair. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... in her sweetest society prattle, after subduing an intense desire to yank a handful of sunburnt, sandy hair from the head lying back contentedly against the canvas of the steamer chair, "had too much money. Mines, wasn't it? It was something that paid something to the ton. You couldn't get a glass of plain water in their house. Everything at that ball ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... matter with the one-horse, country-jay doctor now, hey! If there is any one of the Boston specialists at a hundred a visit who can yank a man out of a serious sickness and put him on his feet quicker than I can, why trot him along, that's all! I want to see him! I've been throwing bouquets at myself for the last ten hours. Ho! ho! Say, Ros, you'll think my head is swelled pretty ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln |
