Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also junky) rubbishy, second-rate, inferior.

1940		E.F. Frazier Negro Youth 93: Half the ceilings fell in Cardoza just before school closed. This has happened in a number of schools this year, even up at Miner Teachers College, the ‘junkiest’ building I know.
1943		Lincoln Star (NE) 2 July 3/6: [advert] Bring in your ‘Junk’ Jewelry [...] our boys use colorful pieces for trading with natives.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 163: Blowing into town in a junk Model-A with bald tyres, no muffler and one headlight.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 14: You keep your junky car, you goddamned gook!
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 182: Just pick a high-class jeweler, not Kay’s or a junk place, but something like Tiffany or Van Cleef.
1983		S. King Christine 49: He don’t want no junk car in front of the house.
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 59: You’re about as welcome as junk mail.
2000		Observer 30 Jan. 8: Distractions from homework, such as Playstations and junk TV.
2017		V. McDermid Insidious Intent (2018) 80: That so-called forensic gait analysis was pretty much junk science.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 191: Juan the fry cook’s junk jalopy was parked just ahead.

2. (drugs) pertaining to heroin or the hard drug culture.

1952		E. Reid Mafia 65: ‘[W]e’re using Coast Guard craft as ‘escorts’ for hot ships to prevent them from making contact with junk boats.
1961		L. Block Diet of Treacle (2008) 167: We head first for Buffalo. It’s a big junk town. I can sell there.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 34: The jivetalk — a mixture of jazz, joint, junk sounds.
1973		P. Maas Serpico 146: He could see it in the inspector’s face: plainclothesmen took gambling and vice money, and it was a relatively minor step, the temptations indeed greater, to taking junk money.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] ‘What’s the weather like out?’ I ask without any enthusiasm at all, me junk apathy making even small-talk a chore.

3. (drugs) pertaining to marijuana.

1961

L. Block Diet of Treacle (2008) 100: Business as usual seven days a week in the junk business.