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flotsam

   Also found in: Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
flot·sam  (fltsm)
n.
1.
a. Wreckage or cargo that remains afloat after a ship has sunk.
b. Floating refuse or debris.
2. Discarded odds and ends.
3. Vagrant, usually destitute people.

[Anglo-Norman floteson, from Old French floter, to float, of Germanic origin; see pleu- in Indo-European roots.]
Usage Note: In maritime law, flotsam applies to wreckage or cargo left floating on the sea after a shipwreck. Jetsam applies to cargo or equipment thrown overboard from a ship in distress and either sunk or washed ashore. The common phrase flotsam and jetsam is now used loosely to describe any objects found floating or washed ashore.

flotsam
Noun
1. floating wreckage from a ship
2. flotsam and jetsam
a. odds and ends
b. Brit homeless or vagrant people [Anglo-French floteson]

flotsam
material floating on the sea, especially debris or goods from ship-wrecks. Cf. jetsam.
See also: Ships
Flotsam parts of wreckage of a ship or cargo found floating on the sea, 1607; of odds and ends, 1861. See also jetsam.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.flotsam - the floating wreckage of a ship
wreckage - the remaining parts of something that has been wrecked; "they searched the wreckage for signs of survivors"

flotsam
Translations
German flotsam [ˈflɔtsəm] n (also: flotsam and jetsam) → Strandgut nt;
(floating) → Treibgut nt

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And clear across to the Atlantic, the Junta in touch with them all and all of them needing guns, mere adventurers, soldiers of fortune, bandits, disgruntled American union men, socialists, anarchists, rough-necks, Mexican exiles, peons escaped from bondage, whipped miners from the bull-pens of Coeur d'Alene and Colorado who desired only the more vindictively to fight--all the flotsam and jetsam of wild spirits from the madly complicated modern world.
I found some of it hard to endure, though I am a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain to "shut up" I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of human flotsam, cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere casual dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship.
Financiers and promoters, and all the flotsam and jetsam of the sea of speculation surged upon the shores of his eleven millions.
 
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