Forms: 5 ionke, 7 iunke, junke, 8 junck, 8– junk. [Of obscure origin: though identical in form with prec., there is no evidence of connection.]
† 1. Naut. An old or inferior cable or rope; usually old junk. Obs.
1485. Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 49. Hausers grete and small … iij. Jonkes … iiij. Ibid., 55. Olde Jonkes … iiij.
1600. Hakluyt, Voy. (1810), III. We only roade by an old iunke.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 155. Peeces of a junke or rope, chopped very small.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 15–6. Cables, hawsers or streame cables … when that way vnseruiceable, they serue for Iunkes, fendors and braded plackets for brests of defence. Ibid. (1627), Seaman’s Gram., vii. 30. Fenders are peeces of old Hawsers called Iunkes.
1769. Newland, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 86. You may make your ship fast with any old junk.
† b. A piece of old cable used in making a fender, etc. Obs.
[1626–7: see 1.]
a. 1642. Sir W. Monson, Naval Tracts, (1703), III. 374/1. I advise, that … the uppermost part of the Ship be arm’d with Junks of Cables.
1716. Glossogr. Nova, Bongrace, to Mariners is a Frame of old Ropes or Juncks of Cables, laid out at the Bows, Stems, and Sides of Ships … to preserve them from Damage of great Flakes of Ice.
c. Old cable or rope material, cut up into short lengths and used for making fenders, reef-points, gaskets, oakum, etc.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 14 July. Four or five tons of corke, to send … to the fleet; being a new device to make barricados with, instead of junke.
1704. New Hampsh. Prov. Papers (1868), II. 440. Ordered, that Mr. Treasurer, provide … Junk for Wadding, Tar, Blacking &c. for the great Guns.
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. ii. 133. We had not a sufficient quantity of junk to make spun-yarn.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, ii. 2. The steerage … was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, old junk, and ship stores.
1877. [W. H. Thomson], Five Yrs.’ Penal Servitude, i. 46. Every morning the quantum of ‘junk’ was served out.
d. transf. Any discarded or waste material that can be put to some use: cf. junk-dealer in 5.
1884. H. Frederic, in Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Aug., 11/1. Many of them [shops] are devoted to the sale of rags, and the sweepings of a city, bones, junk—a collection of pestilence-breeding filth.
2. transf. A piece or lump of anything; a CHUNK.
[Chunk may have originated under the joint influence of chuck and junk.]
1726. G. Roberts, Four Years Voy., 154–5. I … gave to each of them a short Junk of Pipe.
1764. Grainger, Sugar-Cane, I. Note 41. The stem is knotty, and, being cut into small junks and planted, young sprouts shoot up from each knob. Ibid., III. 127. The Cane … Cut into junks a yard in length.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, i. (1859), 8. A large knot in his cheek from a junk of tobacco therein stowed.
1843. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 270. [He] snatched up a large pound-cake, cut it into junks.
1876. Miss Braddon, J. Haggard’s Dau., xxiii. 243. The huge junk of single Gloucester.
3. transf. orig. Naut. The salt meat used as food on long voyages, compared to pieces of rope; usually with epithet, as old, salt, tough junk.
1762. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, xiii. Your mistress Aurelia, whom I value no more than old junk, pork-slush, or stinking stock-fish.
1792. M. Cutler, in Life, Jrnls. & Corr. (1888), I. 486. I had infinitely rather sit down with you to a piece of salt junk at one o’clock than be tormented with the parade … of Philadelphia entertainments.
1862. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., X. v. (1872), III. 263. Steadfastly eating tough junk with a wetting of rum.
4. Whale-fishery. The lump or mass of thick oily cellular tissue beneath the case and nostrils of a sperm-whale, containing spermaceti.
1850. Scoresby, Cheever’s Whaleman’s Adv., x. (1859), 135. What whalers call the junk, or mighty mass of blubber, was separated from the case.
c. 1865. Letheby, in Circ. Sc., I. 97/2. The dense mass of cellular tissue, called junk.
5. attrib. and Comb., as junk-mat, etc.; junk-dealer, U.S., a marine-store dealer; junk-hook, a hook used in handling the junk of a whale; junk-ring, (a) a metal ring confining the hemp packing of a piston; (b) a steam-tight metal packing round a piston; junk-shop, a marine store, the shop of a junk-dealer; junk-strap, a chain for hoisting the junk of a whale to the deck of a vessel; junk-vat, in tanning, a large vat for holding weakened vat-liquor; junk-wad, a wad for a gun made of junk or oakum bound with spun-yarn. Also JUNKMAN2.
1882. Sala, Amer. Revis., v. (1885), 70. The marine store or *‘junk’ dealer, as he is styled in New-York.
1892. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 May, 7/2. These ‘exchanges’ are bought by the pound from an old junk-dealer [in New York].
1851. Illustr. Catal. Gt. Exhib., 1416. *Junk mats.
1839. R. S. Robinson, Naut. Steam Eng., 41. On the top of the packing rings comes the *junk ring, which occupies the whole space from the boss of the piston to the sides.
1887. D. A. Low, Machine Draw. (1892), 61. The piston rod and nut are of wrought iron, so also are the junk ring bolts.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, ii. 50. Receivers … who kept Old Iron and *Junk Shops in places adjacent to the River.
1883. [L. J. Jennings, ], Millionaire, II. xvii. 77. Old Jeremiah Flint, who keeps the junk-shop down there close to the London Docks.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Junk-wad.
1879. Man. Artillery Exerc., 323. When junk or grummet wads are used they are supplied by 5.
