flotsam
7
8.0
- noun
- /ˈflɑːtsəm/
:
madera flotante
- The beach is littered with flotsam, bits of rope, and plastic bottles.
- flotsam and jetsam
If we let these Bantam buried phantoms master us as they reappear, we'll be swept back helplessly in the flood tide like pieces of flotsam, right?
- If we let these Bantam buried phantoms master us as they reappear, we'll be swept back helplessly in the flood tide like pieces of flotsam, right?
Examples
-
Pool toys bobbed atop the water like flotsam from a shipwreck.
Fiction book (1999) -
On the beach, the wrack line lay thick with whatever flotsam the waves had driven home.
Fiction book (2002) -
It's only a bit of flotsam, sir.
-
A very significant piece of flotsam, eh?
-
A tree branch and other flotsam are being carried downstream by the current.
Fiction book (1996) -
The beach is littered with seaweed and flotsam, bits of rope, and plastic bottles.
Fiction book (2000) -
Crabs, eels, flounder, and other marine creatures wash in like so much flotsam.
Academic text (2006) -
Oudeis ordered them to scavenge among the broken timbers and other flotsam that had washed ashore.
Fiction book (1995) -
On the beach, the wrack line lay thick with whatever flotsam the waves had driven home.
-
Huge crowds of people gathered on the beach like flotsam washed up by the waves.
Synonyms
3
8.7
Things that a ship throws into the sea to make the ship lighter, often wash ashore
1
7.4
Unwanted things left behind, often washed up on a beach
Compounds
Surface Forms
Etymology
Flotsam comes from an old word that meant 'to float', the same idea as the common English word float. It originally named bits of a ship or its cargo that float after a wreck, so today flotsam means floating wreckage.