fink

See also: Fink

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /fɪŋk/
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪŋk

Etymology 1

Unknown; first attested in 1894.[1] A connection to Yiddish as some propose is unlikely.[2]

suggested origins
  • German Fink (“finch; frivolous or dissolute person; informer”) as finches are notoriously chatty birds in groups.
  • Partly from the German theory, a fanciful association by students with the freedom of wild birds as opposed to caged ones.
  • The slang name pink for Pinkerton agents and their use as strikebreakers in the 1892 Homestead strike. If the term is from the corporate name, then it is of Scots origin, Pinkerton being from a place near Dunbar, which is from an unrecognized first element (possibly ultimately pre-Celtic substrate) and Old English tun (“enclosure, homestead, etc.”).

Noun

fink (plural finks)

  1. (chiefly US, slang) A contemptible person.
  2. (chiefly US, slang) An informer.
  3. (chiefly US, slang) A strikebreaker.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

fink (third-person singular simple present finks, present participle finking, simple past and past participle finked)

  1. (chiefly US, slang) To betray a trust; to inform on.
    • 1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 222:
      “I move that we determine through a thorough investigation whether the new worker is a fink or no; and if he is a fink, let us discover who heʼs finking for!”
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

fink (third-person singular simple present finks, present participle fought, simple past and past participle fought)

  1. (dialectal, th-fronting) Pronunciation spelling of think.

Etymology 3

From Afrikaans vink.

Noun

fink (plural finks)

  1. (South Africa) Any of several birds in the family Ploceidae native to southern Africa.
Derived terms

References
  1. “Stumpy” and Other Interesting People by George Ade published on the 17th of March 1894 in the Chicago Record in the column Stories of the Streets and of the Town. A criminal character describes it as similar to "a stiff, a skate. [Someone who] drinks and never comes up. [Someone who's] always layin' to make a touch, too."
  2. Studies in Etymology and Etiology by David L. Gold, page 77/Section 5
  • “fink”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  • "fink" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
  • "fink" in the Dictionary of South African English
  • “fink”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  • Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
  • Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)

Albanian

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *spinga, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pingos (“chaffinch”), identical with Greek σπίγγος (spíngos, “id”), English spink, Old Norse spiki (“kind of bird”). One might also consider a borrowing from Proto-Germanic *finkiz, *finkōn (“finch”), possibly Balkan Gothic.

Noun

fink m (indefinite plural finkë, definite singular finku, definite plural finkët)

  1. finch

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle Low German vinke. Akin to English finch.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /fɪŋk/

Noun

fink m (definite singular finken, indefinite plural finker, definite plural finkene)

  1. a bird of the family Fringillidae, the finches

Derived terms

References

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Middle Low German vinke. Akin to English finch.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /fɪŋk/

Noun

fink m (definite singular finken, indefinite plural finkar, definite plural finkane)

  1. a bird of the family Fringillidae, the finches

Derived terms

References

Old High German

Noun

fink m

  1. finch

Swedish

Noun

fink c

  1. a finch (bird)

Declension
Declension of fink 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative fink finken finkar finkarna
Genitive finks finkens finkars finkarnas

Derived terms

References

Anagrams
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