junk Hear it!

junk¹ Definition

junk (juŋk)

noun

  1. Obsolete old cable or rope used for making oakum, mats, etc.
  2. old metal, glass, paper, rags, etc., parts of which may be salvageable for reuse
  3. Informal useless or worthless stuff; trash; rubbish
  4. ☆ Slang a narcotic drug; esp., heroin
  5. Baseball, Slang low-velocity pitches, esp. slow curve balls

Etymology: ME jonk < ? jonk, reed < OFr jonc < L juncus, a rush: see jonquil

transitive verb

☆ Informal to throw away as worthless or get rid of by selling as junk; discard; scrap

junk¹ Related Forms
junk′y adjective junk′i·er, junk′i·est
junk² Definition

junk (juŋk)

noun

a Chinese or Japanese flat-bottomed ship with a high stern and lugsails or lateen sails

Etymology: Fr jonque < Port junco < Jav jong < Malay adjong

junk Synonyms

junk

n.

  1. Rubbish

    waste, garbage, refuse; see trash 1.

  2. Salvage

    scraps, odds and ends, miscellany, stuff; see rummage, trash 3.

junk* Synonyms

junk*

v.

scrap, dump, sell for scrap, throw away; see discard.

junk Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • accumulate: Ours was no exception - we'd been accumulating junk in our last house for 13 years.
  • eat: We also reported parents' great frustration over powerful peer pressure at school to eat only junk for lunch.
  • send: Junk and other unwanted e-mail I've been sent some junk e-mail, what do I do now?
  • remove: Threw large amounts of stuff onto the landing and started removing the real junk.

Adjective modifier

  • assorted: Sadly one almost expects waterways to have assorted junk in them and Salmon's Brook is no exception.
  • processed: I am ashamed of the food I serve up, salty, processed junk.
  • useless: Only in America do they leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put useless junk in the garage.
  • unsolicited: Spam Unsolicited junk e-mail sent to large numbers of people often containing irrelevant or inappropriate messages.
  • unwanted: Spam, spam, nothing but spam ' Spam ' is the Internet term for unwanted junk e-mail.
  • Chinese: He was a pole man on a Chinese junk.

Modifies a noun

  • mail: Of course junk mail does have a couple of benefits.
  • E-mail: For more comfortable moving of spam to Junk E-mail, use the Junk button on the Apple Mail toolbar.
  • emails: The more you comp, the more ` junk emails ' you get.
  • mailer: The junk mailers have access to the permanent change of address database; they use it to update their lists.
  • e-mails: Increasingly a large volume of e-mail users are bothered by the volume of SPAM or unsolicited junk e-mails which appear.
  • food: Junk food ads to be banned from kids ' TV.

Noun used with modifier

  • sailing: Take a sunset cruise aboard a Siamese sailing junk or enjoy a massage in the shade of a palm tree.
  • advertising: Junk food clampdown threat The food industry was warned to stop advertising junk food to children within a year or face a clampdown.
  • household: Scrap Heap Challenge Build a tank transporter using household junk to transport one, two or three model tanks.
  • filter: You no longer have to download and filter junk messages, saving your time and bandwidth.
junk Quotes

I love metaphor the way some people love junk food.

—Gass,William H(oward)