Yankee dime

n. a (perfunctory) kiss. Subjects: English, United States, Slang

Editorial Note: This term appears to originate in the South.

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Citations: 1846 Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio) (Jan. 13) p. 3: If you’ll do me this favor in double quick time,/You shall have my best wishes and a Yankee dime. 1900 The Landmark (Statesville, N.C.) (Aug. 28) “A Great Day at Troutman’s” p. 3: When the boys and girls husked corn together and the boys hustled like the very mischief to get the first red ear—wonder why?—and then attended the girls home from these husking bees and night singings, bidding them good-night in the moonlight at the front gate and going home with a bran[d]-new Yankee dime, feeling prouder and more independent than any of the present generation. 1928 Indiana Weekly Messenger (Pa.) (June 7) “Colloquial” p. 6: “Yankee dime” is a slang term used in some sections of the United States, particularly in the South, to denote a kiss, just as “Dutch quarter” is used to mean a hug. In some sections “Quaker nickel” is employed in the same sense as “Yankee Dime.” 2004 Merle Kessler DBMT (San Francisco, California) (Sept. 29) “Yankee Dime”: Yankee Dime This is Texas slang, apparently (I read it in the Lone Star Iconoclast!) for an insincere kiss. President Bush sure knows how to spend those.

Posted 12 Oct 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Thanks for backing me up!

by Deana 26 Jul 06, 0632 GMT

Not Texas slang, but I’d be willing to bet it’s confined to Southern slang.

I was born and raised in Alabama.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to say, “Give me a Yankee dime.”

As I grew older, I forgot all about the phrase until she was dying. A man visiting her in the hospital leaned over her bed and said, “Give me a Yankee dime.”

Memories flooded my soul.

I now say the same words to my own granddaughter.

“Give me a Yankee dime.”

by Paige 06 Sep 07, 0623 GMT

I am 76 and we used this in Texas when I was young. I say it now and no one around me understands.

by Claude Davis 11 Nov 07, 0149 GMT

12/o3/1907
I am 81 and my mother would tell one of us 9 children she would give us a “yankee dime if we would do something for her. I ask my for a yankee dime and she did not know what I wanted. We lived in Nashville TN.
Herman Tucker

by Herman A Tucker 03 Dec 07, 0520 GMT

I’m 63 and raised in NW Tennessee and I heard it used as “kiss” when I was a child. Haven’t talked to many younger than me that have heard it and fewer north of there. I have no idea of origin, but suspect it might have indicated something of little value, like southerners would have thought of northern promises after the Civil War. Can’t imagine in the South during that time it being slang for anything of much value.

by ed ellis 13 Jan 08, 1053 GMT

Another Alabama girl.

My father would ask for a favor (“bring me a Coke, and I’ll give you a yankee dime”).

I consistently “fell” for it until I was about nine, when I began to value kisses more than lucre.

by Beck 17 Mar 08, 0511 GMT

I grew up in Northeast Louisiana, and I can remember my best friend’s grandpa saying that to her. We both still use it sometimes, and we are only in our 20’s. None of our friends have ever heard of it, but they all think it is cute.

by Rachel 11 Apr 08, 0710 GMT

I won a yankee dime from my husband, then when I bragged about it at work no one knew what I was talking about. I then tried to find anyone who knew what a yankee dime was and “NO ONE” (out of 30-40 people) knew what it meant. I’m from Alabama and my dad gave out a lot of yankee dimes! Connie 4/23/08

by Connie Jones 23 Apr 08, 0500 GMT

well I like it and think it is cute—I am new to Texas and I am going to start using it to revive it again.
Thanks Guys!

by Krisltilyn 10 Aug 08, 0348 GMT

man, I live in Georgia and I am only in my teens and I use that all the time. When I was younger my dad always asked me to do stuff and when I said I wouldn’t do it he always asked, “Would you do it for a yankee dime?”
I use to think everyone knew what it was- but I found out when I got to highschool that only a few people knew what it was! So now I say it to tease people.

by Lou 28 Sep 08, 0439 GMT

I’m a 50 year old woman, raised in Texas, but I go right back to being a girl when I hear “yankee dime”. My mother used the expression when I was a child. She still does every so often. I used the expression today and none of the 4 women I was talking with knew what it meant. I couldn’t believe it! I had to GOOGLE it just to prove to them I wasn’t a complete loon.

by Beth 16 Oct 08, 0807 GMT

Im 57 and i have an aunt who use it to teese me when i was a child.just to see my face turn red.LOL

by ker 31 Oct 08, 1245 GMT

The love of my life, whom I hadn’t talked to or seen since I was 17 and whom I have found again now that we are in our 40’s, recently offered me a yankee dime. We are both from south Arkansas but I had never heard of this and had to google it because he was keeping it a mystery. I can’t wait to collect from him!
by suz357

by Suzanne 24 Nov 08, 0529 GMT

I am 85 and first heard this when I was little girl growing up in Mexia, Texas from my old momma

by Margie 22 Dec 08, 0842 GMT

My grandmother is from Arkansas south and migrated to California during the Great Depression. Once during a visit, she told me she would give me a Yankee Dime if I ran to get something out of her car. I ran as fast as I could and returned with the item to which she gave me a give peck on the cheek. Thanks Nanny, I replied, but can I have my Yankee Dime now. She informed that the peck on the cheek was the Yankee Dime. Although I was a little dissapointed at the time, it is one of my fondest memories of my Nanny.

by Brian 27 Dec 08, 0343 GMT

I’m a 69 y.o. from Mississippi, and I heard about Yankee dimes quite frequently when I was a child. I think I recall my sister offering to give me a Yankee dime if I would do something for her.

by Marshall Gurley 29 Dec 08, 0831 GMT

I am 52 from Knoxville, Tennessee. My mother use to offer a Yankee Dime to my siblings and I if we would do a chore for her. We all new it meant all we would get for our efforts was a kiss but we did it anyway. Mom also talked about “grandmas beads” the thin black ring around your neck formed by sweat and coal dust.

by Roger 07 Feb 09, 0222 GMT

I grew up hearing the term “Yankee dime,” and learned its meaning in the fifth grade in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, when a girl asked me for a bite of peaches on my lunchroom tray and kissed me on the cheek.

If you have not heard the marvelous song, “Yankee Dime,” by Effron White, you are missing a treat. The first line goes: “She said she’t give me a Yankee Dime if I would give her a real good time…” I hadn’t thought of the term in years until I heard that song…

by Charlie Crow 09 Feb 09, 1210 GMT

Correction to the opening line of Effron White’s “Yankee Dime” and the rest of the first verse: “She said she’d give me a Yankee Dime, if I would just love her one good time; We were young, she was wild and free, And I admit she tempted me. But on my other arm there stood another girl so pure and good; I turned down that Yankee dime to take the good one and make her mine.”

by Charlie Crow 09 Feb 09, 0418 GMT

My dad was from Alabama. He used to ask us girls for yankee dimes all the time. We quickly learned that these were kisses!

After my dad passed away, I would find dimes in the strangest places. Bottom a grocery bag, under a notebook, in the middle of the garage, and often one would drop out of my purse (not so unusual). When my son played the basketball championship, I found a dime in the bleachers!

After my friend’s mother died, my friend found a dime on the sidewalk. She called to tell me my dad had “stopped by.” I said, no - I know that that is! Your mom is having cofee with my dad and said - boy I sure wish I could let my daughter know I’m thinking of her, and dad said, Hey I know how to do that! and BAM, there’s a dime!!

My family and friends cherish these and in the 13 years since my dad passed, I’ve gotten quite a collection. It always brings a smile to my face, and sometimes a tear. (sure loved my daddy ... miss him all the time)

by tjwiiams 30 Mar 09, 0816 GMT