Etymology

flotsam

F4L1O1T1S1A1M3

Today it means: Debris floating in a river or sea, in particular fragments from a shipwreck. Full definition →

Anglo-Norman floteson ← Old French flotaison ← Latin -atio
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Latin · derived from-atio
  2. Old French · derived fromflotaison“a floating”
  3. Anglo-Norman · derived fromfloteson
  4. English todayflotsam

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.