an unpleasant person 讨厌鬼;卑鄙小人 Word Originlate 19th cent.: of unknown origin; perhaps from German, literally ‘finch’, but also a pejorative term. Students started to refer to non-members of fraternities as finks, probably by association with the freedom of wild birds as opposed to caged ones. The term was later generalized to denote those not belonging to organizations such as trade unions.