Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) a traitor, an informer.

1906		Eve Jrnl. (Wilmington, DE) 25 July 6/3: Refrring to him in very uncomplimentary terms, and calling him a ‘gink’ and a ‘sneak’.
1928		Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/4: Here are a few more terms and definitions from the ‘Racket’ vocabulary: [...] ‘gink,’ a traitor.

2. (orig. US, also ginkerino) a stupid, useless person.

1906		Wash. Post (DC) 30 Dec. 64: [caretoon strip] Uncle Louie was a foxy gink — was he?
1908		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 21: Who’s the gink with the brush.
1916		A. Stringer Door of Dread 55: Gee, but the ginks yuh bump into at this game!
1921		T. Thursday ‘Hail the Professor’ Top-Notch 1 Sept. 🌐 The ginkerino who had told of Shakesbeer [...] and so forth and so on, was out of sight.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 128: We are Air Force [...] and superior to civvy ginks.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 147: The manager [...] kicked my admirer out when I told him the gink had followed me from Buenos Aires.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 177: Look at that gink out there, the four-eyed one.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 58: I never seen a meaner cuss in a ruckus than that ornery gink.
1959		J. Thompson Getaway in Four Novels (1983) 100: Them ginks don’t even know what we’re talking about.
1963		N. Dunn Up the Junction 2: Bet they’re all married, dirty ginks!
1965		‘SWAP Dict. Teen-age Sl’ in Ebony Mar. 98/2: Gink: a ‘square’ [...] as in ‘That giunk just cut loose the foxiest broad around’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 34: It took her days. Gink-work. That’s how she made them.

3. (orig. US) a peasant.

1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 214: He calls up a thin, peak-nosed, wild-eyed gink who’s wearin’ a greasy waiter’s coat.
1916		J. Lait ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 158: If anybody knows anything that was the gink.

4. (US tramp) a tramp who worked seasonally or occasionally.

1915		H.F. Day Landloper 37: They had a gink in a padded cell in the jail.
1918		‘A-No. 1’ Mother of the Hoboes 44: Gink or Gandy Stiff: occasionally labored, a day or two at the most. [Ibid.] 61: ‘This must be a training quarter for circus dogs,’ observed the gink.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 448: Gink, A tramp who occasionally works.

5. (US) a fellow, a person (not pej.); also as a jovial/affectionate term of address.

1912		T.A. Dorgan Daffydils 12 Dec. [synd. cartoon strip] The gink stabbed the air a few times.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 265: I’m trying to learn to talk the way you educated ginks do.
1922		M.E. Smith Adventures of a Boomer Op. 27: There stood a guy about six foot four and as broad as a moving van, was a good natured looking gink though.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 6 Aug. [synd. col.] Weber and Heilbroner’s ad [...] showed a handsome gink smoking a pipe – with a ciggie in his right hand.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 160: Who’s them ginks in th’ shack?
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 78: These archaeology ginks had nutted it out.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 67: I [...] stretched with all the luxury in that gesture for a gink who’s been parked behind the wheel of a car for twelve solid hours.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 134: He will want men he can trust, ginks who feel the same as he does.
1995		P. Boland Tales from a City Farmyard 109: Right enough, the clever ginks had climbed the Marion Villas wall.

6. an animal, esp. a stubborn one.

1920

T.H. Kelly What Outfit, Buddy? 45: It was a battle to get that gink in his stall.

7. (US) an East Asian.

1929

J. White ‘The Big Corral’ in Lonesome Cowboy 45: The ugly gink is a half breed chink.