jettison
Americanverb (used with object)
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jettisons,
present (3rd person singular)
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jettisoned,
past participle, past
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jettisoning
present participle
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to cast (goods) overboard in order to lighten a vessel or aircraft or to improve its stability in an emergency.
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to throw off (something) as an obstacle or burden; discard.
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Cards. to discard (an unwanted card or cards).
noun
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the act of casting goods from a vessel or aircraft to lighten or stabilize it.
verb
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to throw away; abandon
to jettison old clothes
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to throw overboard
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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jettisonsimple
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jettisonssimple
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have jettisonedperfect
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has jettisonedperfect
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am jettisoningprogressive
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are jettisoningprogressive
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is jettisoningprogressive
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have been jettisoningperfect progressive
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has been jettisoningperfect progressive
Past
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jettisonedsimple
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had jettisonedperfect
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was jettisoningprogressive
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were jettisoningprogressive
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had been jettisoningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of jettison
1375–1425; late Middle English jetteson < Anglo-French; Old French getaison ≪ Latin jactātiōn- (stem of jactātiō ) jactation
Explanation
Jettison means to push to the side or toss away. If a boat is leaking or an airplane is running out of fuel, you can buy more time by jettisoning cargo, or throwing it overboard. The word jettison — dating, in its nautical meaning, from the 15th century in English — is commonly used figuratively as well as literally. You can jettison a friendship or an attitude. During the month that the Winter Olympics are aired on TV, figure-skating fans across the country jettison homework and other responsibilities in order to watch.
Vocabulary lists containing jettison
This Week in Words: September 25 - October 1, 2017
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Hamilton
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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.
See Examples For:
Markets aren’t cynical enough to jettison their bets on tech, however, and continue to ride the sector’s extraordinary gains into the start of the new month.
From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026
The swift text-email combination marked yet another evolution in the often-changing tactics employers deploy to jettison workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
High-profile announcements from companies over the past few years promising to jettison the bachelor’s degree as a hiring requirement largely haven’t resulted in action.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 25, 2025
In public, Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim tried to counter the view that he wanted to jettison Rashford.
From BBC ● Feb. 2, 2025
Haynes was waxing rhetorical—the critics don’t want to jettison everything from the past.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
In his directorial debut, John Travolta takes a swing so big that it knocks him off his feet and jettisons him into the air — 30,000 feet in the air, to be exact.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
The new approach jettisons everything we’ve learned over 60 years: that international development is successful when lasting partnerships are built upon a foundation of goodwill.
From Slate ● Apr. 23, 2026
The Tony recognizes Groff’s empathetic portrayal of Franklin Shepard, a Juilliard-trained composer who jettisons his youthful idealism, his stage career and his co-writer to become a successful film producer.
From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2024
The book written by David Thompson with Sharon Washington maintains the film’s immediate post-World War II jubilance but jettisons much of the plot that was specific to De Niro and Minnelli.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2023
The starfish is often in the dilemma of losing a limb or its life; by a reflex action it jettisons the captured arm and escapes.
From The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told by J. Arthur Thomson
“External tanks were only used once. ... We jettisoned them on the way to orbit, and it burned up in the atmosphere before it hit Earth,” Jenkins said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
As Wyatt-Hodge took the crowd's acclaim and left the field, it was the jettisoned Dunkley who met her first by the boundary edge.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
Within days of seeing the images, Essayli’s office jettisoned the charges “in the interest of justice.”
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2026
People like Schliemann enjoyed short-lived pay boosts, only to be jettisoned into an economy where everything costs more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
The cops grouped the boys together, lined them up against a fence, and demanded to know which of them had jettisoned the bag, which later turned out to be filled with quinine, not heroin.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
Plenty of investors these days are jettisoning anything that seems risky from their portfolios.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
What we found could help calm some nerves, and might even stop investors from making the mistake of jettisoning the big winners too early.
From Barron's ● Dec. 3, 2025
It’s hard to imagine that Les Snead and Sean McVay were not in lockstep over jettisoning Ernest Jones and getting next to nothing in return.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2024
When the trees shed their puzzle-piece bark, it’s like they’re exfoliating: They deposit pollutants into the soil, preventing them from entering local waterways or our lungs, while jettisoning damaged bark.
From Slate ● Mar. 16, 2024
Basketball players did passing drills on deck, but the wind kept jettisoning the balls into the Atlantic.
From "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand
Definitions 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.
