salt junk

noun

, Nautical Slang.

1. salted beef or pork.

Word History and Origins

Origin of salt junk¹

First recorded in 1785–95

Example Sentences

For about three shillings and sixpence a day one could obtain a good bed, meals of beef-steaks and joints and fresh vegetables—very welcome after the everlasting salt junk and preserved vegetables of the ship—with the addition of hot rum and water, nearly ad libitum.

From Project Gutenberg

There are degrees of wretchedness: a frame cottage is the habitation of the rich and great where the poor live in turf huts; and the poor subsist on roots and a paste of flour and water when the rich feast on salt junk.

From Project Gutenberg

But let this same person have been at sea for a few months, and the chances are that he will look forward with pleasure to the days on which the salt junk appears on the ship's bill of fare.

From Project Gutenberg

He prefers a West Indian life of warmth and unlimited bananas to an existence in a damp ship on salt junk and biscuit.

From Project Gutenberg

The menu of our shore-dinner was as follows:—Turtle soup, boiled hind-fish, curried turtle-steak, boiled salt junk, tinned plum-pudding.

From Project Gutenberg