jettison
- to cast (goods) overboard in order to lighten a vessel or aircraft or to improve its stability in an emergency.
- to throw off (something) as an obstacle or burden; discard.
- Cards. to discard (an unwanted card or cards).
- the act of casting goods from a vessel or aircraft to lighten or stabilize it.
- jetsam.
Origin of jettison
Examples from the Web for jettisoning
Contemporary Examples
By jettisoning the aggressive rhetoric and cutting U.S. nuclear stockpiles, Reagan helped Gorbachev win at home.
Straighten up and fly right: the capsule is rolling and jettisoning its remaining ballast masses for parachute deploy.
Curiosity’s Mars Landing Narrated Moment by Moment by Flight Director Keith ComeauxKeith Comeaux
August 7, 2012
Historical Examples
This jettisoning of his property with his own hand seemed uncanny to Soames.
The Forsyte Saga, CompleteJohn Galsworthy
The spectacle of the girl struggling with the stuff she was jettisoning put new determination into him.
Blow The Man DownHolman Day
In the same place was a small airlock for jettisoning purposes and for taking in more supplies.
The Planet StrappersRaymond Zinke Gallun
In the present work I have the opportunity which so few authors have enjoyed of jettisoning all technics into an Appendix.
The Foundations of JapanJ.W. Robertson Scott
jettison
- to throw away; abandonto jettison old clothes
- to throw overboard
- another word for jetsam (def. 1)
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for jettisoning
jettison
v.
1848, from jettison (n.) "act of throwing overboard" to lighten a ship. This noun was an 18c. Marine Insurance writers' restoration of the earlier form and original sense of the 15c. word that had become jetsam, probably because jetsam had taken on a sense of "things cast overboard" and an unambiguous word was needed for "act of throwing overboard."
Middle English jetteson (n.) "act of throwing overboard" is from Anglo-French getteson, from Old French getaison "act of throwing (goods overboard)," especially to lighten a ship in distress, from Late Latin iactionem (nominative iactatio) "act of throwing," noun of action from past participle stem of iectare "toss about" (see jet (v.)). Related: Jettisoned.