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• Yankee Doodle
  Yankee Doodle

  noun

  a song with a melody of apparent British origin, popular with American troops during the Revolutionary War.
• “Yankee Doodle”
  “Yankee Doodle”

  A popular American song, dating from the eighteenth century. The early settlers of New York were Dutch, and the Dutch name for Johnny is Janke, pronounced “Yankee.” This is the most likely origin of the term Yankee. Doodle meant “simpleton” in seventeenth-century English. First sung during the American Revolutionary War by the British troops to poke fun at the strange ways of the Americans (Yankees), the song was soon adopted by American troops themselves. Since then, the song has been considered an expression of American patriotism. The popular version of the first stanza is:

  Yankee Doodle came to town

  Riding on a pony;

  He stuck a feather in his hat

  And called it macaroni.

  Yankee Doodle, keep it up,

  Yankee Doodle dandy;

  Mind the music and the step,

  And with the girls be handy.

Yankee Doodle

American  

[dood-l] / ˈdud l /

noun

1. (italics) a song with a melody of apparent British origin, popular with American troops during the Revolutionary War.

2. a Yankee.

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Yankee Doodle British  

noun

1. an American song, popularly regarded as a characteristically national melody

2. another name for Yankee

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“Yankee Doodle” Cultural  

1. A popular American song, dating from the eighteenth century. The early settlers of New York were Dutch, and the Dutch name for Johnny is Janke, pronounced “Yankee.” This is the most likely origin of the term Yankee. Doodle meant “simpleton” in seventeenth-century English. First sung during the American Revolutionary War by the British troops to poke fun at the strange ways of the Americans (Yankees), the song was soon adopted by American troops themselves. Since then, the song has been considered an expression of American patriotism. The popular version of the first stanza is:

   Yankee Doodle came to town

   Riding on a pony;

   He stuck a feather in his hat

   And called it macaroni.

   Yankee Doodle, keep it up,

   Yankee Doodle dandy;

   Mind the music and the step,

   And with the girls be handy.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Yankee Doodle “Yankee Doodle”

But two decades in Germany, where he learned the language so completely that he sometimes catches himself thinking German, helped mitigate any Yankee Doodle stereotypes by the time he moved to La Liga.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026

"I know of only two tunes: one of them is Yankee Doodle Dandy, and the other isn't."

From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2022

“When you opened the door, it played Yankee Doodle Dandy,” said Clayton Pennington, a Maine Antique Digest reporter, according to an article in CBC.

From The Verge ● Oct. 16, 2020

It was a hot day for Concord, sunny and ninety degrees on Main Street, with its stolid Yankee Doodle Dandy red-brick buildings.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 14, 2019

And before I could say Yankee Doodle, I was swept onto the marble dance floor and forced to divide my time among four of the South’s clumsiest, rock-footed mutineers.

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

It’s all a long way from singing “Yankee Doodle” and waiting for the next traveling fair to show up.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026

Kimball’s playing on “Yankee Doodle” is at first loose and unpracticed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2020

I also explored the music archive, which has twenty-five million items, from thousand-year-old chant music to the first opera score ever published to sheet music for “Yankee Doodle” and Beyoncé.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 19, 2017

In his shows, he would play “Fisher’s Hornpipe” with one hand, “Yankee Doodle” with the other, all while also singing “Dixie.”

From Washington Post ● Feb. 15, 2016

Bystanders shouted out their good wishes to her over the pounding of bass drums and flutes piping “Yankee Doodle” as our family watched the town’s Fourth of July parade from a set of bleachers.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama