jetsam
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of jetsam
1560–70; alteration of jetson, syncopated variant of jettison
Explanation
Jetsam is debris floating around the water that has been dumped from a sinking ship. Sometimes beachcombers find jetsam washed up on shore. You often see the phrase "flotsam and jetsam" because both words refer to wreckage from a ship, but how the stuff got there is the difference. Flotsam is from a shipwreck, and jetsam is thrown off the ship to prevent it from sinking. People often use jetsam to mean any discarded objects, not just from the ocean.
Vocabulary lists containing jetsam
Seas The Day: Words That Shore Are Beachy
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 6
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"Master Harold...and the Boys" by Athol Fugard
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The term refers to the letters, advisories, online FAQs, interpretations and other administrative flotsam and jetsam that agencies generate to explain how they will interpret laws and rules.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
While the garden is rooted in local culture, built bit by bit from the flotsam and jetsam of Los Angeles locations and plants native to the ecology, the programming is more global in approach.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2025
"It was impossible not to conclude," he later wrote, that for Powell "the struggle was about achieving long-term objectives, not simply a mastery of the flotsam and jetsam of current events".
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2024
Even though Polk was severely injured, Faulkingham said, he was safe and felt God was watching as flotsam and jetsam from his boat was pushed ashore.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 18, 2023
The place was a back eddy, a pool of jetsam beyond the pull of the main current, and that suited him just fine.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
