Fink
A colleague asked, “What about the word fink?”
The short answer is that the origins are unknown. It is first seen in English in 1902, possibly from German Fink (a frivolous or dissolute person; an informer). German Fink also meant finch (a common European bird) suggesting perhaps a comparison with ‘stool pigeon’.
Another theory suggests that fink comes from ‘the Pinks’; that is, the private police force known as the Pinkerton agents who, notably, were hired to break up the 1892 Homestead strike: a deadly clash between union workers of the Homestead steel mill who were on strike and the ‘Pinks’ who were hired to break up the strike.
The verb ‘to fink’ comes into American English slang in 1925.
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
The short answer is that the origins are unknown. It is first seen in English in 1902, possibly from German Fink (a frivolous or dissolute person; an informer). German Fink also meant finch (a common European bird) suggesting perhaps a comparison with ‘stool pigeon’.
Another theory suggests that fink comes from ‘the Pinks’; that is, the private police force known as the Pinkerton agents who, notably, were hired to break up the 1892 Homestead strike: a deadly clash between union workers of the Homestead steel mill who were on strike and the ‘Pinks’ who were hired to break up the strike.
The verb ‘to fink’ comes into American English slang in 1925.
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
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