Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chink) a bedbug; thus chinchy adj., infested with bugs.

1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 198: The floor was knobby, the mosquitoes seemed rather to enjoy the cold, and the banks [i.e. sleeping benches] swarmed with ‘chinches.’ [Note] The chinch or chints is the Spanish chinche [...] In other parts of the United States the English bug is called a bed-bug.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 134: Among these the most undesirable are probably the two vile companions, which we apparently shrink from naming in good English, the chinch and the mosquito.
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 74: chinch, n. Bed-bug. ‘Chinches are hard to get rid of.’.
1908		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 298: chinchy, adj. Full or infested with bedbugs.
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 7 Nov. 28/2: That wary, night-faring, blood-sucking, little animal [...] ‘bedug,’ ‘chinch,’ ‘mahogany flat,’ ‘red coat’ or ‘wall louse’.
1925		Odum & Johnson Negro and His Songs (1964) 159: Honey babe, honey babe, bring me de broom. / De lices an’ de chinches ’bout to take my room.
1937		J. Tully Bruiser 146: The cinch bug, the Hessian fly, the locust of old, he fought all in turn.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 34: I found out then that chinches never die.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 482: chinch: A bedbug. That rooming house is just full of chinches.
1960		J.D. Macdonald Slam the Big Door (1961) 172: Chinch bugs, red bugs.
1970		F. Collymore Notes for Gloss. of Barbadian Dial. 29: Chink. Bed-bug.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 187: Her mouth tasted like she had been eating Harlem chinches.
1989		C. Hyatt When Me Was A Boy 133: One day ah see a chink – y’nuh know, a bed bug – inna one a them.

2. a term of affection, usu. aimed at a child.

1960

C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 44: You little no-good chinch!