A person who teaches or trains someone (especially a child) to commit crimes; named after the character from Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.'
From the character Fagin in Charles Dickens' 1838 novel 'Oliver Twist,' a criminal who trains orphans to be pickpockets. The name became a common noun for someone who recruits others into crime.
Dickens created Fagin partly based on real historical crime figures in Victorian London—his portrayal was so vivid that the character's name actually became legal terminology used in courtrooms to describe adult criminals exploiting children.
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