Etymology Chink The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology n. 1535 perhaps an altered version of chine (before 1382); found in chin, chine, cleft, split, crack, Old English (about 888) cinu, related to cinan to crack, split, gape; cognate with Old Saxon and Old High German kinan to burst open, spout, Gothic uskeinan to sprout out, and Old High German kimo sprout (modern German Keim, germ, bud, sprout). v. 1552, to crack, later, in American English, to fill in cracks (1748). Shaman