List of English Words of Dutch Origin - Y

Y

Yacht

from Dutch jacht, from Middle Low German jacht, short for jachtschip (literally "hunting ship")

Yankee

from Jan Kees, a personal name, originally used mockingly to describe pro-French revolutionary citizens, with allusion to the small keeshond dog, then for "colonials" in New Amsterdam. This is not the only possible etymology for the word yankee, however; the Oxford English Dictionary has quotes with the term from as early as 1765, quite some time before the French Revolution. Nowadays it commonly refers to Americans.