Intelligent self-reliance using available materials. The phrase originated when mid-Atlantic and Southern colonists admired the ingenuity with which their New England neighbors were able to improvise tools and other ways to cope with poor farming conditions and harsh weather. Later on, and despite the dismay of sons and daughters of the Confederacy, “Yankee” described all of the United States (as in “The Yanks Are Coming”), and the phrase was similarly expanded to reflect American know-how and inventiveness.