[lit-ideas] Re: Jink & Juke

Since two early citations are from Burns, I thought it might be worth checking Scottish dictionaries: 


Warrack has:
jink synonymous with chink--a narrow aperture--also a verb, to escape or elude, to swerve quickly, to slouch behind a wall, to play tricks, to cheat, to move nimble, to turn quickly, to spend time idly. A jinking hen is the same as Jenkin's hen, an old maid. To jank also means to escape or elude. A jinker is a fast horse, a lively or giddy girl, an immoral woman, a wag. To jinket is to make merry (enjoy a junket, presumably) or to gad about. Jinkie is a children's game of sudden turns to avoid being caught. Jinking as a noun is a trick, a lark, a quick movement and, as an adjective, wriggling, dexterous, evasive, crafty, merry, sportive.
Cleishbotham, a nineteenth century dictionary, makes it clear that the word pre-dates ball sports but reveals that when that dictionary went into print @1858, sports and jinks were synonymous. There no listing for "high-jinks."
Jamieson is the oldest Scottish dictionary I own, published in 1818. It says that poets Burns and Ferguson agree that jinking means to avoid pursuit and that this business of spending time idly comes from German sources, a mis-hearing of "schwinken," a word I can't find in my German dictionary. To jank not only meant to run off, in 1818 it meant also to trifle [with], and something that was jankit was fatigued or jaded. 

Like you, now, possibly?

David Ritchie,
dealing with the [SAAB] dealer in
Portland, Oregon
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