Now dial. Forms: 5–7 spynke, 6 spynk, 6–7 spinke, 6– spink. [prob. imitative of the note of the bird: cf. PINK sb.6]
1. One or other of the finches; esp. the chaffinch.
Also, in Lancs., Westm., Cumbld., the yellow-hammer.
c. 1425. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 640. Hic rostellus, spynke.
1483. Cath. Angl., 355/2. A Spynke…, spinx.
a. 1529. Skelton, P. Sparowe, 407. The larke with his longe to; The spynke, and the martynet also.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. The Spink, the Linot, and the Gold Finch fill All the fresh Aire with their sweet warbles shrill.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VII. lv. 886. The spinke is a very beautifull and melodious birde, but all spinkes haue not one and the same tunes.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, II. xiv. The little bird called a spink or chaffinch.
1767. W. Harte, Amaranth, Eulogius, Poems (1810), 385/2. The spink chants sweetest in a hedge of thorns.
1787. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, Suppl. I. 165. The Chaffinch … called by some … Spink, from its cry.
1811–. in various dial. glossaries, chiefly northern, midland, and E. Anglian.
1875. Browning, Aristoph. Apol., 341. Collops of hare, with roast spinks rare.
† b. Sc. Used as an abusive epithet. Obs.–1
1508. Kennedie, Flyting w. Dunbar, 552. Spynk, sink with stynk ad Tertara Termagorum.
2. With distinguishing prefix, as herring spink, the golden-crested wren; † mountain spink, the mountain finch or brambling, Also GOLDSPINK.
1611. Cotgr., Passe de bois, the little brambling, or mountaine Spinke.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 21 July, 13/1. By the fishermen of the North Sea these little birds are known as ‘herring spinks.’
3. Used to imitate or represent the characteristic note or cry of certain birds. (Usually with repetition.)
1898. R. Kearton, Wild Life at Home, 82. Some tantalising accident … scared her off with an angry ‘spink, spink, spink.’
1899. Crockett, Kit Kennedy, 195. Here … the stone-chats cried spink-spink-spink.
Hence Spink v. intr., to utter the note ‘spink.’
1892. Hugh Miller, in Blackw. Mag., July, 103/2. He spinks, and chatters, and vibrates his little quill.
1898. R. Kearton, Wild Life at Home, 54. [The young blackbirds] ‘spink, spink, spinked’ just as loudly and angrily as if a cat had intruded itself upon them and their offspring.
