fighting for punk

[George Thompson]

A fellow in Georgetown, . . . fighting "for punk," had his nose taken off by the teeth of his antagonist.
New York Transcript, March 4, 1836, p. 2, col. 1

I don't see anything in the OED that's clearly related.
"punk", noun, #3 (core idea is "Soft decayed or rotten wood"): sense 4. colloq. Something worthless; foolish or meaningless talk; nonsense, rubbish, from 1869 --- supposing "fighting for punk" meant something like "empty or wanton violence"

"punk", noun, #1 (core idea is "prostitute", &c.): sense 3,: a despicable or contemptible person; (broadly) a person, a fellow (rare);(b) a petty criminal; a hoodlum, a thug. is much later (1904)

Nothing in DARE.
Nothing in Jonathon Green's Chambers Slang Dictionary

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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