flotsam

noun

flot·​sam ˈflät-səm 

1

: floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo

broadly : floating debris

flotsam washed up by the tide

2

a

: a floating population (as of emigrants or castaways)

human flotsam

b

: miscellaneous or unimportant material

a notebook filled with flotsam and jetsam

c

: debris, remains

the village … built on the flotsam of war

—Stan Sesser

Did you know?

English speakers started using flotsam, jetsam, and lagan as legal terms in the 16th and 17th centuries, with flotsam itself dating to the first years of the 17th. The three words were used to establish claims of ownership of the three types of seaborne, vessel-originated goods they named. Flotsam was anything from a shipwreck (the word comes from Anglo-French floter, meaning "to float"), and jetsam and lagan were items thrown overboard to reduce the cargo weight of a ship. Lagan was distinguished from jetsam by having a buoy attached so the goods could be found if they sank. In the 19th century, when flotsam and jetsam took on extended meanings, they developed synonymous applications and are today often paired, lagan having mostly been left at sea.

Synonyms

• ashes
• debris
• detritus
• remains
• residue
• rubble
• ruins
• wreck
• wreckage

Examples of flotsam in a Sentence

flotsam washed up on the shore

the dispirited family picked through the flotsam of their possessions after the hurricane, looking for anything that could be salvaged

Recent Examples on the Web

Your business isn’t a piece of flotsam driven by random forces. —Meredith Moore, Forbes.com, 4 June 2025

On the other, random pieces of informational flotsam were elevated to the status of genuine facts only once they were vetted by credentialled people with special access to the truth. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 28 May 2025

Saleem’s is a life worth thinking about, more than flotsam tossed by history. —Emily Temple may 27, Literary Hub, 27 May 2025

This replenishment likely comes from collisions between dwarf planets, cometary nuclei, micrometeoroids and other flotsam and jetsam lurking in the dark of the debris disk. —Keith Cooper, Space.com, 19 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

Anglo-French floteson, from floter to float, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English flotian to float, flota ship

First Known Use

circa 1607, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Kids Definition

flotsam

noun

flot·​sam ˈflät-səm 

: floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo

Legal Definition

flotsam

noun

flot·​sam ˈflät-səm 

: floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo compare jetsam