Word: jon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1873-1873
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...circulation here about 1713. According to Dr. William Gordon, Farmer Jonathan Hastings was a man from whom the students used to hire horses. He would use the expression, "A Yankee good horse," to denote an excellent good horse. The students gave him the name of Yankee Jon. Yankee became a by-word to denote a silly, awkward person, and being carried from college was thus circulated through the country, and was at length taken up and applied as a cant-word to New-Englanders in common, bearing with it a tinge of reproach, and has ultimately come to be used...