hinky

Do you know the word hinky?

It's not in any dictionary I've checked, including my shorter OED. (Hincty is.)

But people are using it.

In the past few months, I've heard it in reference to television plot twists, A/V cable hookups, and furniture construction. Usage-wise, hinky seems to be heading in the direction of rickety, half-assed, and mickey-mouse, impying poor construction. (Construction that would arouse suspicion?)

Where does this word come from? A possible explanation is here...starting with hincty:

First recorded in the 1920s, hincty has two distinct senses. The first is found almost exclusively in Black English, and means 'snobbish; haughty; conceited; aloof; fastidious'. Example: "She wasn't a bit hinkty like so many folks when they're light-complexioned and up in the money" (Langston Hughes, Ways of White Folks, 1934). This word is of unknown origin.

The second sense is apparently the one you have in mind: 'wary or extremely cautious; feeling suspicion', a sense used chiefly by the police and members of the criminal underworld. This also dates from the 1920s, but was never very common.

The second word is your hinky. This seems to be a variant of hincty, with the medial -t- lost for ease of pronunciation. Hinky is extremely rare in the sense 'snobbish', but it quite common as a police and underworld term for 'wary', and hence 'nervous or jumpy'. The word is often found in crime novels.

As a police and underworld term, hinky can also mean 'arousing suspicion' (in English, suspicious can mean both 'feeling suspicion' and 'arousing suspicion', so we can separate hinky into both meanings as well).

Does anyone else find it interesting that a word meaning 'aloof' and 'haughty' in Black English carries a secondary meaning of 'suspicious' in Cop English?