Salt meat supplied to vessels for long voyages; so called because it is hard and tough as old rope-ends so called. Ropes are called junks because they were once made of bulrushes. Junk is often called salt horse. (See Harness Cask.)
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.