junk

plural junks

1. uncountableusuallyMiscellaneous items of little value, especially discarded or unwanted items.

   This shed is full of junk – will you help me sort it out?

   3 more examples

   She needs to find a better place to keep her junk [= belongings].

   What a piece of junk!

   1977, George Lucas, Star Wars: A New Hope, spoken by Luke Skywalker

   In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.

   2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74

   Synonyms: clutter, cultch, crap, debris, dreck, drek, garbage, gash

2. attributiveuncountableusuallyMaterial or resources of poor quality or low value, especially resources that lack commercial value.

   junk food

   1 more example

   junk fish; junk trees

3. uncountableusuallyNonsense; gibberish.

   The student put down junk for answers just to finish his homework more quickly.

4. slanguncountableusuallyAny narcotic drug, especially heroin.

   Ah love nothing (except junk), ah hate nothing (except forces that prevent me getting any) and ah fear nothing (except not scoring).

   1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 21

   2 more examples

   The poor fellow took so much junk into his system he could only weather the greater proportion of his day in that chair with the lamp burning at noon, but in the morning he was magnificent.

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC

   Trace a line of goose pimples up the thin young arm. Slide the needle in and push the bulb watching the junk hit him all over. Move right in with the shit and suck junk through all the hungry young cells.

   1966 [1961], William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine (The Nova Trilogy), New York: Grove Press, page 7

5. slanguncountableusuallyThe genitalia, especially of a male.

   Got a spot on the voice, I'm a neo punk / Old ladies cum when I flash my junk

   2023, “Neo Punk”, in Every Loser, performed by Iggy Pop

   2 more examples

   I'm talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk / Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk / Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk

   2009, “Tik Tok”, performed by Kesha

   But what to do about a kid who flashes his privates at your child? And worse, how do you make sure your kid does not reciprocate? That's exactly the dilemma one mom faced when she learned that her 5-year-old neighbor had flashed his "junk" at her two sons and then made them swear not to tell.

   2019 April 18, Genny Glassman, “Parent Torn After Discovering 5-Year-Old Neighbor 'Flashed' Kids & Told Them to Keep It a Secret”, in CafeMom

   Synonyms: anaconda, baloney pony, bald-headed hermit, banana, bird, birdie, bobby, boonga

6. uncountableusuallynauticalSalt beef.

   My physician has ordered me three pounds of minced salt-junk at every meal .

   c. 1851-1852, James Russell Lowell, Leaves from My Journal in Italy and Elsewhere

7. uncountableusuallyPieces of old cable or cordage, used for making gaskets, mats, swabs, etc., and when picked to pieces, forming oakum for filling the seams of ships.
8. countabledatedusuallyA fragment of any solid substance; a thick piece; a chunk.

   Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, An' gives a good-sized junk to all

   1848, [James Russell Lowell], “(please specify the page)”, in Homer Wilbur [pseudonym], editor, Melibœus-Hipponax. The Biglow Papers, […], Cambridge, Mass.: George Nichols, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Then he lay quiet for a little, and then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid. “Cut me a junk o’ that,” says he, “for I haven’t no knife and hardly strength enough, so be as I had. […]”

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

9. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesAn entity with no whole; every part is itself a proper part of something larger.
10. abbreviationuncountableusuallycomputingShort for junk email.

    I think my last message went into your junk.

present singular third person junks · participle present junking · participle past junked · past junked

1. informaltransitiveTo throw away.

   Synonyms: bin, chuck, chuck away, chuck out, discard, dispose of, ditch, dump

2. informaltransitiveTo find something for very little money (meaning derived from the term junkshop)

   (On Facebook, a record collector wrote:) "The newest addition to my Annette Hanshaw collection, I junked this beautiful flawless E-copy within walking distance from my house."

3. informalintransitivetransitiveTo consume junk food, mainly at a fast-food restaurant.

   Let me go junking to KFC with you.

   1 more example

   Let's just junk some burgers at McDonald's.

plural junks

1. nauticalA Chinese sailing vessel.

   It was a vessel of about seventy tons burthen, and shaped something like a Chinese junk.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 160

plural Junks

1. A surname.