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Home » Segments » Janky, a Fifty-Year Slang Summary

Janky, a Fifty-Year Slang Summary

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Melanie from San Antonio, Texas, uses the term janky to mean “not good ” or “not well,” and in her family, they’ll jokingly use the term dejankify and dejankification to refer to washing their dog. The janky in one or another has been around since the late 1960s (although we didn’t take it that far back during this segment). Also spelled jinky, jinkie, and jankey, it’s probably based on the word junky and influenced by skanky and stanky, a way of stinky. This is part of a complete episode.

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