junkyardn.
/ˈdʒʌŋkjɑːd/, U.S. /ˈdʒəŋkˌjɑrd/ Originally and chiefly North American.
1. An area or enclosure where old or discarded items and materials, esp. scrap metal, are collected before being reused, recycled, or destroyed; a scrapyard.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > refuse or rubbish > [noun] > scrap iron > heap of > site of
boneyard1860
junkyard1869
scrap-ground1927
scrapyard1963
1869 Appletons' Jrnl. 12 June (Art Suppl.) 1/2 Endless lumber-yards, brick-yards, stone-yards, slate-yards, wood-yards, oil-yards, junk-yards, lime-yards.
1880 G. W. Cable Grandissimes 192 You may still..see one [sc. a villa] standing..among..junk-yards, and longshoremen's hovels.
1924 Washington Post 22 Sept. 6/3 In 1830 ‘Old Ironsides’ was threatened with active destruction in the junkyard.
1952 W. R. Burnett Vanity Row (1953) vi. 50 All about loomed gas tanks, warehouses, junk yards.
2003 Brit. Columbia Mag. Summer 16/2 Its entrance is flanked by a massive junkyard piled high with machinery, boom boats, and broken-down cars.
2. figurative and in extended use. A place which is untidy, dirty, or cluttered with objects or refuse; something which is in very poor condition or is fit only for scrap. Also: a notional place to which something that is disused, forgotten, or past is consigned.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > refuse or rubbish > [noun] > heap or accumulation of
middena1425
dust-heap1654
refuse heap1816
detritus1849
tip1863
dump1865
waste-heap1873
junkyard1885
slag heap1917
1885 N.-Y. Times 9 Nov. 1/1 It may be insisted that he stand up and explain why the headlight of the party in that district should not be taken down for repairs or he deposited permanently in the party's junk yard.
1897 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Jrnl. 7 July 4/6 ‘They can put me off the active list because I've reached the lawful age,’ says Rear Admiral Brown, who has just been retired, ‘but they can't send me to the junkyard yet awhile.’
1953 Manch. Guardian Weekly 27 Aug. 7 Suffocating in a junkyard of chairs.
1974 M. Hastings Dragon Island ix. 77 The only reason this floating junkyard's still in service is that the Chinese perishers that own her can't even give her away.
2001 Cultural Survival Q. (Nexis) 31 July 9 The European languages Polabian, Dalmatian, and Mozarabic have been relegated to the linguistic junkyard.
2013 T. Pynchon Bleeding Edge xx. 226 The Deep Web is supposed to be mostly obsolete sites and broken links, an endless junkyard.
Compounds
C1. General attributive and objective. See also junkyard dog n.
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1890 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 3 Aug. 3/2 He came to the corner of Austin and Preston, opposite the junk yard corner.
1930 Amer. Speech 6 119 Probe started in junk yard blaze.
1965 C. Himes Cotton comes to Harlem (1988) xv. 107 Why would anyone want to rub us out because a junkyard laborer was murdered?
1988 Star (Homewood & Flossmoor, Illinois) 19 May a3/2 Skeletal remains unearthed in DuPage county may belong to an ex-Calumet City junkyard operator who vanished in 1977.
2014 Guardian 29 Nov. (Guide Suppl.) 66/2 The kind of folks happy to snap up ol' Tony Bennett's junkyard finds.
C2. attributive. Designating music featuring sounds produced by found and discarded objects and materials; relating to such music.
ΚΠ
1972 Cue 4 Nov. 8/2 ‘Castor and Pollux’, a perfectly terrible piece by Elizabeth Waters set to some of Harry Partch's junkyard percussion ‘music’.
1983 Washington Post 29 Aug. b3/1 The musicians take up their toy and handmade instruments and begin to play while one youth sings, twists and turns his body to the junkyard beat.
2012 Booklist 15 Dec. 41 He finds his own beat banging with sticks and stones on old tins, cans, pots, and pans... With his friends, he forms a junkyard band.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1869