1. [n]  an American
2. [n]  an American who lives in New England
3. [n]  an American who lives in the North (especially during the American Civil War)
4. [v]  pull, or move with a sudden movement; "He turned the handle and jerked the door open.."

1. \Yank\, n. [Cf. Scot. yank a sudden and severe blow.]
   A jerk or twitch. [Colloq. U. S.]
   

2. \Yank\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Yanked}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Yanking}.]
   To twitch; to jerk. [Colloq. U. S.]
   

3. \Yank\, n.
   An abbreviation of {Yankee}. [Slang]
   

(From the colloquial meaning "to pull suddenly") To insert a copy of some saved text at the current position in a document being edited.

The term is used in the Unix text editors GNU Emacs and vi but "paste" is more common elsewhere.