janky

[jang-kee]

adjective

Slang.

1. inferior in quality.

   a low-budget janky recording.

2. not working or operating properly: the game's janky interface.

   a janky old car;

   the game's janky interface.

3. untrustworthy; disreputable.

   He's a good guy but has some weird and janky friends.

4. undesirable; dilapidated or run-down.

   He's from the janky part of town where there was a shooting the other night.

Word History and Origins

Origin of janky¹

First recorded in 1990–95; origin uncertain; perhaps a regional or affected pronunciation of junky ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

“From the moment I was writing that song, it was screaming at me that it was track one. It felt right to start with this janky phone recording of me playing piano,” he says.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"It's incredibly janky but, for me, the jank is the important thing," she says.

Read more on BBC

In an early episode, McCann breaks her phone, and, being the only member of the cast who isn’t rolling in cash, totes her janky laptop to the club so she can send texts.

Read more on Salon

It was a Black New Orleans band with horns and background singers and a violin player — not Juilliard violin but like a janky New Orleans violin.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Obsessed with past wrongs, Jabir has been quietly building a time machine, a contraption that looks like a janky iron lung.

Read more on New York Times