flotsam
/ˈflɒts(ə)m
/noun [mass noun]
1The wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on or washed up by the sea. Compare with jetsam.It has the habit of swimming in small shoals around patches of flotsam, or floating logs, and is attracted by rafts or drifting boats....
- But being seen in the shimmering waters, when you're but a speck of flotsam to a passing ship, was never a sure bet.
- It's finding a shell or bit of interesting flotsam washed up during the last high tide or a few oysters that can be opened and washed down with a glass of wine back home.
Synonyms
wreckage, lost cargo, floating remains
1.1People or things that have been rejected or discarded as worthless: the room was cleared of boxes and other flotsam...
- The federation is a worthless body of flotsam - we should invite the university to take over: it can't possibly do any worse.
- Obviously, with every man and his dog being able to update the pages of such a site, there was always a very real risk that idiots would try to fill it with disinformation, advertising and other worthless flotsam.
- Outside, a man is pushing a battered shopping cart filled with flotsam from the road: crumpled cans, a discarded flask, a pillow.
Synonyms
rubbish, debris, detritus, waste, waste matter, discarded matter, dross, refuse, remains, scrap, lumber, odds and ends;
North American trash, garbage;
Australian/New Zealand mullock
informal dreck, junk
British informal grot, gash
vulgar slang shit, crap
Archaeology debitage
rare draff, raffle, raff, cultch, orts
Phrases
flotsam and jetsam
Origin
Early 17th century: from Anglo-Norman French floteson, from floter 'to float'.
This legal term for wreckage found floating on the sea or washed up on the beach, comes ultimately from French, from the verb floter ‘to float’. Flotsam and jetsam is useless or discarded objects. Jetsam came originally from jettison (Late Middle English), a term for the deliberate throwing of goods overboard to lighten a ship in distress, which came ultimately from the Latin verb jactare ‘to throw’. In the 16th century it was shortened to give us first the spelling jetson and then our modern word jetsam. There are strict legal distinctions made between what you can do with flotsam and with jetsam.