Fagin

• fagin

From the character named Fagin in Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfeɪɡɪn/

Fagin (plural Fagins)

1. A person who entices children into criminal activity, often teaching them how to conduct those crimes, and profits from their crimes in return for support.
   • 1947, California News - Volumes 63-67, page 104:

     The indignation of the self-respecting deaf is aroused by the fact that nine-tenths of the mendicant peddling is engineered by slick Fagins who teach inexperienced deaf youths the tricks of the trade and then collect the lion's share of the profits.

   • 1967, Public Hearing: Subject: Licensing of Private Facilities, page 14:

     We sort of treat a situation whereby the proprietor or operator or person running a foster home, if he were to make a profit, we sort of regard him as sort of a Fagin because he has been making money off little kids.

   • 2009, Problems of Education, →ISBN, page 70:

     Each such group exercises a formative influence on the active dispositions of its members. A clique, a club, a gang, a Fagin's household of thieves, the prisoners in a jail, provide educative environments for those who enter into their collective or conjoint activities, as truly as a church, a labour union, a business partnership, or a political party.

   • 2010, Graham Vickers, Neal Cassady: The Fast Life of a Beat Hero, →ISBN:

     A few of its occupants were poor, law-abiding folk just trying to get by peaceably, but it was a heaven-sent recruiting center for Jack and Ralph who, Neal said, ran a Fagin-like academy for aspiring pickpockets, sneak thieves, and burglars.

   • 2013, Charles Samuel, Ghost of Honor, →ISBN, page 177:

     At Midwest there is a Fagin character, Quinton, who is running a school for terrorists or something on that order.

   • 2016 May 23, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Apocalypse pits the strengths of the X-Men series against the weaknesses”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Apocalypse also happens to be a Fagin figure, shuffling around the back alleys of Cairo, where he makes the weather-controlling pickpocket Storm (Alexandra Shipp) his first follower by offering her baubles.

• Faginesque

• ganif