Chink

Chink is an English-language ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese descent, but also used to insult people with East Asian features. The use of the term describing eyes with epicanthic folds is considered highly offensive and is regarded as racist by many.

Various dictionaries provide different etymologies of the word chink; for example, that it originated from the Chinese courtesy ching-ching, that it evolved from the word China, or that it was an alteration of Qing (Ch'ing), as in the Qing dynasty.

Another possible origin is that chink evolved from the word for China in an Indo-Iranian language, ultimately deriving from the name of the Qing dynasty. That word is now pronounced similarly in various Indo-European languages.

The first recorded use of the word chink is from approximately 1880. As far as is ascertainable, its adjective form, chinky, first appeared in print in 1878.

Around the turn of the 20th century, many white Americans in the Northern United States perceived Chinese immigration as a threat to their living standards. However, Chinese workers were still desired in the Western United States due to persistent labor shortages. Chinese butcher crews were held in such high esteem that when Edmund A. Smith patented his mechanized fish-butchering machine in 1905, he named it the Iron Chink which is seen by some as symbolic of anti-Chinese racism during the era. Usage of the word continued, such as with the story "The Chink and the Child", by Thomas Burke, which was later adapted to film by D. W. Griffith. Griffith altered the story to be more racially sensitive and renamed it Broken Blossoms.

Although chink refers to those appearing to be of Chinese descent, the term has also been directed towards people of other East and Southeast Asian ethnicities. Literature and film about the Vietnam war contain examples of this usage, including the film Platoon (1986) and the play Sticks and Bones (1971, also later filmed).

The terms Chinaman and chink became intertwined, as some Australians used both with hostile intent when referring to members of the country's Chinese population, which had swelled significantly during the Gold Rush era of the 1850s and 1860s.

Assaults on Chinese miners and racially motivated riots and public disturbances were not infrequent occurrences in Australia's mining districts in the second half of the 19th century. There was some resentment, too, of the fact that Chinese miners and laborers tended to send their earnings back home to their families in China rather than spending them in Australia and supporting the local economy.