The term Yankee (sometimes shortened to ""Yank"") has a few interrelated meanings, usually referring to someone either of general United States origin or, more specifically within the States, to people originating in New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region. The meaning of ""Yankee"" has varied over time. In the eighteenth century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region (Mark Twain, in the following century, used the word in this sense in his novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, published in 1889).