What is the origin of the word 'gangster'?

Answer 1

http://www.answers.com/library/American%20Word%20Origins-cid-32826 gangster

Origin: 1896 Groups of people who work or hang out together have been with us since the dawn of humanity, and gang or something like it (ging) has been an honorable word used to refer to them since the dawn of the English language. Around the time when English speakers were beginning to settle in North America, gang also acquired the specific meaning of "a group up to no good," as in a gang of housebreakers or thieves. It was apparently an American idea, though, to use the negative connotations of gang in reference to politicians. John Quincy Adams wrote bitterly of "the united gang of Calhoun and Jackson conspirators against me" in 1833. But the great American invention related to gang was gangster. We find it in an editorial in the Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch in 1896: "The gangster may play all sorts of pranks with the ballot box, but in its own good time the latter will get even by kicking the gangster into the http://www.answers.com/topic/gutter." The prohibition of Alcoholic Beverages enacted in 1919 as the Eighteenth Amendment offered expanded opportunities for gangsters to make money and come to the attention of the public. In Chicago, Al Capone wielded such ruthless power that to this day, throughout the world, the city is associated with gangsters. Gangster stories and movies became a favorite genre. The most recent development of the word identifies the genre of rap music known as gangster rap (1989) or gangsta rap (1990).