flotsam

flotsam
noun
flot·;sam ;fl;t-s;m
Synonyms of flotsam
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?
Flotsam and Jetsam Aren't Just Ursula's Eels

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
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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