Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (drugs) a heroin addict; occas. of cocaine (see cite 1960).

1923		N. Anderson Hobo 102: One type of dope fiend is the Junkie. He uses a ‘gun’ or needle to inject morphine or heroin.
1933		G.T. Fleming-Roberts ‘The Silenced Partner’ in Ten Detective Aces Oct. 🌐 Did you know your pal, Morris, was a junky?
1935		R. Chandler ‘Spanish Blood’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 43: She’s a junkie and junkies are like that.
1943		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 2 Jan. 15: A cousin who’s called ‘Junky Joe.’ / He peddled dope and bootlegged beer.
1943		W. Brandon ‘It’s So Peaceful in the Country’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 317: [He] turned into a junkie.
1947		Kerouac letter 26 Aug. in Charters I (1995) 115: Everybody looks like a junkey — but I can’t be sure.
1952		T. Southern ‘The Night the Bird Blew for Doctor Warner’ in Southern (1973) 47: You might say that a junky is something more than a hipster.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 311: junkey. A drug addict.
1960		C. Himes Big Gold Dream (1969) 117: Dummy say [...] that she was a junky; that she sniffed cocaine.
1964		L. Hansberry Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) I i: One lousy junkie, all of seventeen.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 49: [H]e was a junkie — so, I suppose, he had every right to be sick.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 304: The Yank junks go bonko for it [i.e. kif].
1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 33: He became a sneak thief junky who stole from friends and family.
1978		D. Marechera House of Hunger (2013) [ebook] [A] motley rabble of single persons, junkies, dope-pushers, frightened old age pensioners, unemployed men and women.
1980		(con. 1940s–60s) H. Huncke ‘Detroit Redhead’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 108: Eventually picking up steady with a cat who was a junky.
1982		H. Beaton Outside In I i: She’s a junkie.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time app. C 242: I had that many fights. You had to prove yourself, because a junkie was regarded as an imbecile and dog in those days, simply because he was a junkie.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 305: Psychos, junkies, banged-up teenies.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 218: Matilda was the sister-in-law of a fellow junkster.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] [T]he cunt’s nothing more than a labour day junkie who spends a tenner on gear when he gets his dole.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 189: The dirty junkies upstairs.
2000		Observer Rev. 9 Jan. 7: Their passengers are murder victims, junkies, whores, winos [...] people who leave blood, not tips, behind them.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] Maybe my attacker was a junkie.
2010		(con. 1960s) K. Richards Life 257: If you were a junkie, you registered with your doctor and that would register you with the government as being a heroin addict.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 21: [A] junkie-on-junkie homicide.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 397: I was a junkie and a bitch.

2. (rare) a heroin seller.

1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 323: Junkie, A dope peddler.
1955		Q. Reynolds Police Headquarters (1956) 31: They began to use the police slang [...] a dope peddler [was] a ‘junkie’.
1971		Current Sl. V:4 15: Junky, n. A person who sells drugs.

3. a (regular) user of any drug.

1962		F. Norman Guntz 99: I was watching this junky doing his nut.
1971		N. Mailer in Harper’s Mag. Mar. 44: A world of junkies, hippies, freaks, and freaks who made open love at love-ins, be-ins, concerts, happenings.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 223: Junk has produced such terms for confirmed users of narcotics as junk freak, junk hog, junker, and junkie.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 298: [He] pulled out a half-smoked crack spliff. [...] He’d stopped telling Cory about it because he didn’t want him to think he’d turned into some kind of junkie.
2000		Indep. Rev. 28 Feb. 7: I hung out with junkies, and my clean friends didn’t want anything to do with me.

4. fig. an addict of any sort, e.g. vinyl junkie, a collector of vinyl (rather than cassette or CD) recordings.

1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 34: Barbara Jane once called her an eye-shadow junkie.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 26: Harvey had never been a junk-food junkie.
1982		G. Tate ‘Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 42: I’m no ‘Planet Rock’ junkie.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 28: Ever since the guru of the drive-in scene disappeared off the pages of the Times Herald, us B-movie junkies have been going through withdrawal.
1998		Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 26: Swift had to use every ounce of charm [...] to keep those impatient beat junkies sweet.
1999		Indep. Rev. 28 July 9: Trend junkies who like to maintain their presence on the cutting-edge.
2000		Observer Screen 16 Jan. 7: A self-confessed style junkie.
2008		Sun. Times (S. Afr.) 6 Jan. 9: The adventure junkies have planned their route, which will see them clock 17,500km through 11 countries.
2022		A. Kirzman Giuliani 190: [T]he rampant disorder in the streets was what got his adrenaline going. [...] But it wasn’t clear that what Iraq needed was an action junkie.