Word.ws English Dictionary

flotsam

/ˈflɒtsəm/US/ˈflɑtsəm/

flotsam noun: debris floating in a river or sea, in particular fragments from a shipwreck.

Noun

flotsam (countable and uncountable, plural flotsams)

  1. Debris floating in a river or sea, in particular fragments from a shipwreck.
    • WORF: Sensors beginning to pick up small objects, sir.
      PICARD: On screen.
      RIKER: Doesn't look natural.
      PICARD: Agreed. Enlarge and identify.
      WORF: It looks like debris from a space vessel of some kind.
      RIKER: It could be one of those ships that was orbiting Dytallix.
      LA FORGE: We are in close...1988 May 9, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Conspiracy (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Paramount Domestic Television, →OCLC
    • STORAGE boxes -- catchalls for flotsam, jetsam, whatnots and thingamajigs -- are gaining new interest as decorative objects for the home.1991 May 30, Emily Gwathmey, “Storage Box: Catchall's New Life as Eye-Catcher”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 14 Dec 2024

flotsam meaning in Malayalam and Indonesian

flotsam in Malayalam

സമുദായബന്ധമില്ലാതെ ജീവിക്കുന്നവൻ

flotsam in Indonesian

flotsam
sarah

Examples of flotsam in a sentence

  • The flotsam and jetsam of society were at the night club.
  • The remaining flotsam was washed ashore.
  • Storage boxes—catchalls for flotsam, jetsam, whatnots and thingamajigs—are gaining new interest as decorative objects for the home.

All 10 example sentences with flotsam

Forms of flotsam

pluralflotsams
alternative formfloatsam
alternative form (dialectal)floatsome
alternative form (dated)flotson

Origin of flotsam

From Anglo-Norman floteson, from Old French flotaison (“a floating”), from floter (“to float”), of Germanic origin (See float.), + -aison, from Latin -atio.

Words formed from flotsam

Questions about flotsam

What does flotsam mean?
Flotsam means debris floating in a river or sea, in particular fragments from a shipwreck.
What is flotsam in Malayalam?
Flotsam in Malayalam is സമുദായബന്ധമില്ലാതെ ജീവിക്കുന്നവൻ. See Flotsam meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is flotsam?
Flotsam is a noun.
How do you pronounce flotsam?
Flotsam is pronounced /ˈflɒtsəm/ (UK).
What is the plural of flotsam?
The plural of flotsam is flotsams.

Words near flotsam in the dictionary

  1. flotillas
  2. flotillin
  3. flotillins
  4. floting
  5. flotorial
  6. flotsam
  7. flotsam and jetsam
  8. flotsams
  9. flotson
  10. flotsons
  11. flottant

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flotsam (page history and authors); flotsam (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-flotsam.wav.

Cite this entry: “flotsam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flotsam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.