piece of junk
35
3.2
- noun
- /piːs əv dʒʌŋk/
- Informal
- Where did you get this piece of junk?
- useless piece of junk
- stupid piece of junk
- just a piece of junk
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Watch on YouTubeHe could not understand why I would want this bizarre piece of junk representing me.
- He could not understand why I would want this bizarre piece of junk representing me.
- If you have this gorgeous computer put in front of you and you don't know what to do with it, it's a piece of junk.
- But while I could test this thing, frankly I have spent enough of both my time and money evaluating this piece of junk.
- We take pieces of junk and broken shit and junkyard stuff and we attempt to turn it into something beautiful.
Examples
-
The car was a piece of junk.
Fiction book (1998) -
- The car's a piece of junk, anyway.
-
Yeah, well, it looks like a piece of junk.
-
This thing's a piece of junk.
-
It's a piece of junk.
-
This is a piece of junk.
-
What a piece of junk!
-
It's an old piece of junk.
-
Get that piece of junk off the road !
-
This old bicycle is just a piece of junk that nobody wants.
Synonyms
402
1.1
Old or broken things that are no longer useful
55
8.9
A thing of very poor quality that is useless
25
1.0
Things people throw away because they are not wanted
22
1.7
A thing that is useless and not worth keeping
16
4.7
Something thought to be worthless or of very low quality
7
9.9
Poor-quality items that are not worth buying
5
9.4
Cheap things that break easily
5
9.9
A rude word for something that is nonsense or of very low quality
3
8.8
A thing that is broken and useless
2
9.9
A thing that is of very poor quality and not worth the money
1
6.6
A thing that is very bad and of low quality like a book or film
1
9.9
Something of very poor quality not worth buying
1
3.6
A thing made badly that breaks easily or does not work well
1
6.1
A thing that costs little and is low in quality
1
9.9
An object that is poor quality and often breaks, like an old phone or car
1
9.9
A poor-quality thing that does not work well
A thing that is very bad and not worth having
An object like a phone or lamp that is broken and not worth keeping
Antonyms
How Useful
- UK
25
1.0
- Informal
35
3.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'piece' (an item) + 'of' + 'junk' (discarded/worthless objects), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer it means an item that is worthless or poor quality. This straightforward NP composition is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English patterns, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Piece of junk comes from the simple image of a single broken item taken from a heap of old, useless things. The word piece is that one item and junk is the pile of useless stuff, so calling something a piece of junk means it is 'worthless'.