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Unknown; first attested in 1894.[1] A connection to Yiddish as some propose is unlikely.[2]
Suggested origins include:
GermanFink(“finch; frivolous or dissolute person; informer”) as finches are notoriously chatty birds in groups. If so, then Doublet of finch. Compare canary(“informer”).
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 Englishtun(“enclosure, homestead, etc.”).
“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!”
^ “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. drinks and never comes up. always layin' to make a touch, too."