To yank means to pull something suddenly and forcefully. When you yank open a stuck drawer, you're not pulling gently or gradually: you're giving it a quick, hard tug. You might yank a weed out of the ground, yank your hand away from something hot, or yank a book off a shelf in a hurry.

The word captures both the quickness and the force of the motion. If someone tells you not to yank the dog's leash, they mean you shouldn't jerk it roughly. A friend might playfully yank your backpack to get your attention. When a rope gets tangled, you might have to give it a good yank to free it.

Yank can also be a noun: “Give it a good yank and it'll come loose.” The word often suggests a bit of impatience or urgency, like you're not bothering with a careful, measured pull because you need results right now.

Yank (with a capital Y) is also an old nickname for an American, short for Yankee. During the American Revolution, British soldiers called the colonists Yankees. Today the term mostly refers to people from the northeastern United States, and it's also the name of New York's famous baseball team, the Yankees.